Barnaby Joyce has upped the internal ante by backing his National party colleague, John “Wacka” Williams, to be the next president of the Senate, as the Turnbull government absorbs the latest blow in the citizenship debacle – the resignation of Stephen Parry.



Joyce, who is campaigning to hold the seat of New England after having been ruled ineligible by the high court last week because of a dual citizenship, told Guardian Australia that Williams would do a good job as Senate president.

“Wacka is a straight shooter and would be an impartial chair,” Joyce said on Wednesday, after Parry confirmed his intention to resign.

Parry, the Tasmanian Liberal and Senate president, has indicated he will resign from parliament after being told by UK authorities that he holds British citizenship. He will formally resign on Thursday.

The Senate presidency traditionally sits with a member of the Liberal party when the Coalition is in government but Williams, the NSW National, has thrown his hat into the ring.

In a public statement likely to inflame Coalition tensions, Joyce backed his colleague. The endorsement of Williams followed Joyce’s decision to publicly characterise Parry as “dopey” for not checking his eligibility status sooner, when Nationals MPs had cooperated with a referral to the high court.

Joyce declared both Liberal and Labor MPs had played “this dopey little game where they were waiting for the Nats to take the rap [in the high court] and then sneak in behind and say, ‘Well we don’t have to do that.’”

He said Nationals MPs had not deployed any delaying tactics. “As soon as we knew, we went down to the chamber and fessed up.”

Parry’s resignation, which prolongs the government’s citizenship dramas beyond the high court’s recent deliberations, prompted swift jockeying inside the government. The lucrative position adds a further 75% of a senator’s $199,040 base salary. As well as Williams, the Liberals’ Ian Macdonald, is also interested.

With Williams signalling his interest, the Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz declared the Senate presidency was a Liberal position and should remain so.

“Wacka Williams is a very good friend of mine and I get on with him exceptionally well and I would vote for him on one condition: that he joins the Liberal party room,” Abetz said. “This is a Liberal party position, it always has been and always will be.”

Tensions between the Liberal and National parties have been exacerbated in recent weeks because of the fallout associated with the high court ruling, with the National Fiona Nash, who was ruled ineligible, having to make way for a Liberal, Hollie Hughes.

There was also disagreement over the decision to appoint Julie Bishop as acting prime minister during Malcolm Turnbull’s absence overseas, instead of the acting leader of the Nationals, Nigel Scullion.

With the citizenship chaos continuing, some MPs are now backing a full audit of parliamentarians to ensure everyone meets the constitutional requirements.

On Wednesday, Williams joined that call, saying an audit would clean up the citizenship mess “once and for all.”

Asked on the ABC’s Radio National program if an audit would be necessary, Williams said: “Yes, probably, to get rid of any doubt of who in the parliament is sitting there.

“You know, I was thinking about it today and [I thought] in the last 70 years I wonder how many people have sat in either house in the federal parliament with dual citizenship. Would it be dozens or would it be in the hundreds?”

The Liberal MP Craig Kelly has gone even further than calling for a full audit, saying an audit of all candidates from the last election was also necessary, making the point that their preferences would have influenced the result of the election.

Williams said on Wednesday night Kelly made “a good point there, it would be a lot of work and take a lot of time of course, but I’d have no problem with that as well”.

When asked if he had thought about who should conduct the audit of MPs and senators, Williams said he hadn’t thought about it. He then suggested the Australian Electoral Commission could conduct it.

“Whether that happens or not who knows,” he said.

Williams noted the leadership of the Liberal and Labor parties did not want a full audit but pointed out that backbenchers in both parties supported the idea.