Liberal MP Alex Hawke denies holding or seeking Greek citizenship after concerns he may be citizen through his mother

Turnbull government ministers continue to proclaim there is no need for any citizenship audit of the parliament, despite lingering questions over the eligibility of MPs that risk seeing the constitutional crisis drag into the new year.



Despite Coalition MPs such as Kevin Andrews, Craig Kelly and Eric Abetz publicly calling for some sort of citizenship audit to settle the matter, senior government ministers were sent out on Sunday to hold the line against one.

“We have the principles of the procedures of fairness, natural justice and also the presumption of innocence,” Mathias Cormann told Sky. “We don’t want to get ourselves in a situation where we’ve got this witch-hunt type, lynch mob-type justice.

Turnbull says no audit, but rolling eligibility audit there will be | Katharine Murphy Read more

“We are a civilised society, we are a parliamentary democracy, we have constitutional arrangements which underpin the stability of our system of government and we have to preserve that – and that means that members of parliament shouldn’t be put in the position that they are assumed to be in breach unless they can prove they are not.”

Speaking to the ABC, Kelly O’Dwyer also picked up on the “witch-hunt” talking point.

“No witch-hunt, no Salem witch trial will actually take away from the fact that the high court is the only arbitrator on this question, so we need to take a pretty deep breath, because those people who said they’re not compliant have, in fact, come forward,” O’Dwyer.

“And the high court has made a determination and it is clear. And anyone who feels that they are not compliant needs to come forward and seek that referral. And anyone who doesn’t asserts that they are currently compliant with the constitution.”

But Kelly went further, denying that all the MPs who had been referred to the high court had done so only after questions were raised by citizens and the media.

“Every single person who has come before the high court has actually come forward,” she said. “So it’s actually not true at all to say that they have been outed. They, themselves, have come forward and said, ‘We don’t believe that we’re compliant with the constitution, with section 44.’”

Scott Ludlam resigned after a lawyer questioned his dual-citizenship status, which caused Larissa Waters to investigate her own status and subsequently resign.

Barnaby Joyce spent weeks denying any dual-citizenship concerns, and joked about it on some occasions, before media inquiries prompted his own referral, which then led to Fiona Nash making her own individual inquiries regarding her status.

Malcolm Roberts spent weeks denying he was a citizen of any other nation, telling media he was “choosing to believe” he was only ever Australian, before being eventually forced to refer himself to the high court, after Greens senators indicated they were willing to break convention and make the referral for him.

Roberts continued to deny he had any issues until after the high court ruling.

Alex Hawke is the latest Turnbull MP to be dragged into the fray, with News Corp reporting concerns the Mitchell MP may be a citizen by descent of Greece, through his mother.

“I am an Australian citizen only and have never held or acquired or sought Greek or any other citizenship,” he told News Corp.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull returned to Australian on Friday to find the heritage of his energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, under the microscope, following a 2011 decision by Hungary to attempt to right a World War II wrong, reinstating the right to citizenship on citizens who were stripped of their status under the fascist, German-allied government of the 1940s.

Josh Frydenberg denies suggestions he could be Hungarian dual citizen Read more

Frydenberg’s mother, Erica, was one of those citizens.

But despite an internal check on the eligibility of MPs by party executives – which began after Parry’s late admission of a citizenship conflict reinvigorated the issue many had thought was finally settling down following October’s high court ruling – the government officially stands against any sort of public audit.

On Friday, Labor said it would support a universal disclosure of eligibility documents, provided there was bipartisan support.

That came after the president of the Senate, Stephen Parry, came forward with his own dual-citizen concerns, later confirmed, which led to his own resignation.

It later emerged, first reported by the ABC, that Parry had confided his concerns in senior ministers in the lead-up to the high court ruling but had been counselled to remain quiet until after the judgment, with the government then confident its advice from the solicitor general would see its members returned to the parliament.

Mitch Fifield later admitted he had known of Parry’s concerns ahead of his announcement. Turnbull was not alerted until the day Parry’s announcement became public.

Under parliamentary rules, any MP can move a motion to refer another member to the high court, provided the motion receives majority support, however under convention, the member in question, or at the very least their party, are usually encouraged to make the move themselves. Historically, this precedent is yet to be broken.