The citizenship status of Australian MPs has come under scrutiny after two Green Party senators were forced to resign in the space of five days after discovering they were dual citizens.

Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam ran afoul of Section 44 (i) of the Australian constitution, which disqualifies anyone who is "under any acknowledgment 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 a citizen of a foreign power".

Waters and Ludlam were born in Canada and New Zealand respectively and were unaware that they remained citizens of their countries of birth.

It led to some of the 24 overseas-born MPs in the Australian parliament posting documented proof online that they had complied with the Australian Constitution and renounced other citizenship before contesting an election.

However the circumstances that faced Labor senator Lisa Singh, who was born in Tasmania in 1972, suggests it could also affect MPs born in Australia.

"I was lucky the Labor Party did the work because, despite being born in Australia, I was shocked to find out that I was also a British citizen, through my father," Singh told BuzzFeed News.

"Because he had arrived in Australia from Fiji as a British subject - Fiji still being a British colony in those days - his British citizenship that he still held when I was born was conferred on me through birthright.



"So I had dual citizenship that I never knew about."