George Brandis has said the high court’s decision in the citizenship seven case demonstrated an “almost brutal literalism” and has contradicted Malcolm Turnbull by effectively ruling out reform of the constitutional bar on foreign citizens serving in parliament.

In an interview on Sky News on Sunday the attorney general said the government accepts and respects the court’s decision to disqualify deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and four senators but accused it of preferring a “strictly literalist” reading of the constitution rather than deciding based on its purpose.

In a unanimous decision on Friday the justices rejected the commonwealth’s argument that MPs or senators would need to have knowledge of their dual citizenship in order to be disqualified.

After the decision, Turnbull said the government would consider changes to section 44 of the constitution through the joint standing committee on electoral matters process or changes to “electoral laws and practices to minimise the risk of candidates being in breach” of the section.

On Sunday Brandis noted that 51% of Australians were born overseas or had a parent born overseas and Australia should not be a democracy “in which people are disqualified from standing for parliament”.

Asked about constitutional change, Brandis said that only about six of 44 referenda have succeeded. In fact, eight referenda have passed.

“The government’s not talking about that [a referendum] … we are proposing to look at what amendments might be able to be made by the parliament to our citizenship laws,” he said.

The attorney general’s answer appears to rule any attempts to reform of the constitution, despite Turnbull’s suggestion the government will consider it.

At a doorstop in Bendemeer, Joyce said the disqualification of dual citizens through section 44 was “ridiculous” and suggested the issue could be dealt with as a “block lot” with other referendum propositions.

The manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday it would be “outrageous” if the government moved towards “a referendum to make life easier for politicians” while rejecting the request for constitutional reform preferred by first Australians.

On Saturday constitutional law expert, Anne Twomey, said the government could legislate to give clearer notice that candidates must renounce foreign citizenship but could not legislate to automatically take that foreign citizenship away upon nomination.

Brandis said the result was not the one the government had hoped for or expected. Based on the advice of the solicitor general, which he said he and Turnbull had endorsed, Brandis said the government had thought it “had the better side of the argument”.

“We were asking the high court to look at the section in view of its purpose and history, the high court instead took the view that the section should be read with a very strict, almost brutal literalism,” he said. Brandis said the law was now clear and it was a “good thing” the decision was unanimous.

The court held that the construction that all foreign citizens are disqualified not only better fits the natural meaning of section 44 but also better reflected the precedent of Sykes v Cleary.

On the purpose of section 44, the justices said that the second limb of the section “does not look to conduct manifesting an actual split in the allegiance” but rather “operates to disqualify the candidate whether or not the candidate is, in fact, minded to act upon his or her duty of allegiance”.

Burke said that “all the high court has said in its decision … is the view that they’ve had of the constitution for 25 years is still their view”.

Brandis said he had “no reason to believe” that there are other foreign citizens in the Australian parliament.

Asked about the possibility of a parliament-wide audit of eligibility, Burke rejected what he said amounted to a “reverse onus of proof”, and noted Labor and Liberal parties had so far not fallen foul of section 44 because they have better processes.

Brandis accused Labor of “ignoring the iron laws of arithmetic” by suggesting that the government, which won 75 of 149 lower house seats at the 2016 election although one MP sits in the Speaker’s chair, had lost its majority.

Burke said the Speaker is “not a vote on the floor” and Speaker, Tony Smith, has respected the precedent that his vote is not a government vote, meaning the Coalition only had 74 votes on the floor.

Asked if Labor would take advantage of Joyce’s absence to try to pass a bank royal commission, Burke said the opposition would pursue its agenda.

Asked about Labor’s advice that ministerial decisions made by Joyce and Fiona Nash could be subject to challenge, Brandis said the government was “looking very carefully” at the point.

He played down the impact of such challenges suggesting there were “no legal consequences here at all” because most or almost all decisions were decisions of cabinet not ministers themselves.