Former Australian Electoral Commission official Michael Maley advocates new disclosure scheme where candidates would be required to record their place of birth on their nomination form

A former senior official of the Australian Electoral Commission says aspiring, overseas-born politicians should be required to produce supporting evidence of their constitutional right to nominate both to protect the integrity of the system and prevent a proliferation of birther-style controversies.



Michael Maley, a former senior official at the AEC, has used the example of a birther-style campaign against Tony Abbott in the last parliament to make the case the Australian system is essentially self-policing.

Maley has told a parliamentary committee examining the conduct of the last election and the adequacy of Australia’s political donations regime, the government should implement a new disclosure scheme where candidates would be required to record their place of birth on their nomination form and produce a statement of facts demonstrating they were in compliance with the requirements of the constitution.

He says activists during the last parliament pursued the issue of whether or not Abbott faced a potential disqualification because he was born in the United Kingdom. He suggests their concerns were difficult to address because the relevant information was not a matter of public record.

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“During the life of the previous parliament, certain community activists sought to raise the question of whether the then prime minister, Mr Abbott, had failed to renounce the UK citizenship he had acquired at birth and therefore could have been subject to disqualification from being a candidate or an MP under section 44 of the constitution,” Maley says in a submission to the inquiry.

“As it happened, Mr Abbott was under no obligation to make public any relevant correspondence, and to the best of my knowledge did not do so – and there the matter rested.”

Section 44 of the constitution prohibits bankrupts, people who have committed treason, people convicted of certain offences, or people holding an office of profit under the crown from sitting in the parliament.

People “under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power” are also disqualified under section 44.

Maley says it is generally easy enough to determine if someone is bankrupt, or has been convicted of an offence, but “the question of whether a person continues to hold foreign citizenship or is under an acknowledgement of allegiance to a foreign power will, in contrast, typically not be a matter of public record”.

“If a candidate subject to this disqualification has not otherwise publicised the fact and is prepared to make a false declaration in his or her nomination, there is no obvious mechanism by which the candidate’s disqualification can be operationalised.”

Maley says the statement of facts he proposes would be a publicly available document and could be relied upon as prima facie evidence in court actions contesting the eligibility of a candidate.

He says the system would have two benefits: it would minimise spurious birther campaigns against particular individuals and it would “serve to concentrate the minds of candidates who might otherwise be inclined to take a cavalier attitude to the issue”.

A separate submission to the inquiry by Tony Magrathea – one of the most voluble campaigners against Abbott in the last parliament on the basis of citizenship – puts a question mark over the eligibility of the One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts on the basis he was born in India.

Magrathea has declared he wants the committee to make inquiries to ensure Roberts has renounced British citizenship.

A spokesman for Roberts told Guardian Australia on Tuesday he was born in India to expatriate parents, but had only ever held one citizenship.

“Senator Roberts has never held any other citizenship other than his Australian citizenship,” the spokesman said. “He’s had to obtain visas when he’s travelled to the United Kingdom and to India, and people who are citizens do not have to get visas.”

Another One Nation senator Rod Culleton meanwhile, avoided having a conviction recorded against him on Tuesday while pleading guilty to a larceny charge in Armidale local court.

Outside the court, Culleton’s barrister Peter King told journalists his client had been “completely exonerated”.

Pressed how he could be exonerated when he had pled guilty to the offence, King said his client had entered the plea on the basis that he was to be completely exonerated.

Section 44 of the constitution prohibits a person who has “been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the commonwealth or of a state by imprisonment for one year or longer” sitting in the federal parliament.

Culleton told reporters outside the Armidale local court, including the Northern Daily Leader journalist Breanna Chillingworth, he intended to press on with his political career: “Some days dog shit does stick to your boot, but I want to go on from here.”