Matt Canavan should take the “honourable, legal, ethical” step and quit parliament in line with the example set by two senators who also discovered they held dual citizenship, Greens leader Richard Di Natale has said.

Canavan resigned as the resources minister on Tuesday but remains a senator after becoming the third MP to reveal he held dual nationality in the past two weeks.



The federal government intends to press Canavan’s case for eligibility in the high court after he argued he had not breached the constitution because his mother took out dual Italian citizenship for him without his knowledge.

Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters both quit their seats after it emerged they had unknowingly held dual citizenship status of New Zealand and Canada respectively.

Di Natale said while the Greens would seek advice on whether Ludlam and Waters should join a high court test case, it would be appropriate for Canavan to follow suit and resign in the meanwhile.

“The advice we received was that ignorance is no excuse,” the Greens leader said on Wednesday. “If you’re a genuine Italian, you’re a real Italian, you never blame your mum for anything ... so that might be his only defence in this case, I reckon.”

Di Natale said he agreed the law prohibiting dual nationality for MPs was “not appropriate in the 21st century, in a multicultural nation like Australia, but that doesn’t excuse us for not complying with it”.

He added: “If you’re a dual national, you’re ineligible to stand and indeed if you continue to stand there is a risk you are defrauding the commonwealth.

“Unfortunately the only way to change this as it stands is basically to change the constitution.”

Barnaby Joyce – a close friend of the Nationals senator – said the high court would have to decide the case which he said was similar to that of Ludlam and Waters.



“With regards to Larissa Waters or Scott Ludlam, I’ve never thought for any of these people that they deliberately or maliciously went out and did something that was wrong,” Joyce said in Canberra on Wednesday.



“I think that they were caught by circumstance and this is another issue of precisely that. But the constitution is what the constitution is and it is written in black and white and it has to be complied with.

“Where there are questions that need to be asked – and most certainly in Matt Canavan’s case, that is definitely the issue – those questions will be asked but they’ll be asked by people vastly more competent than me and that would be the high court of Australia.”

While he was born in Australia and has never been to Italy, Canavan’s mother registered herself and members of her family as an “Italian resident abroad” – a form of citizenship – with the Italian consulate in Brisbane in 2006.



Canavan was 25 at the time but said on Tuesday that he did not authorise his mother’s actions nor did he know about it.



“Until last week, I had no suspicion that I could possibly be an Italian citizen,” the senator said.

But Joyce, who is the godfather of Canavan’s son, indicated on Wednesday that the senator’s family had discussed the matter but the senator had not signed any forms.

“Senator Canavan has stated to me that he did not complete any forms so it was a discussion the family had and he thought that’s where it’s rested. I think they’ve found the forms and they’re unsigned.”

The Turnbull government is seeking legal advice about the case, but its preliminary view is that he is not in breach of section 44 of the constitution, which bars people with dual or plural citizenship from sitting in parliament.



As such, Canavan has not resigned from the upper house – only as the minister for resources and northern Australia – until the matter is resolved.



Joyce said nobody believed this would happen when the matter was first raised about a week ago.



“One would presume that if something happens without your knowledge, and without your consent, then it’s probably an invalid process,” he said.



“This was something that, two days ago, took us all by surprise when we found out that he was registered as an Italian citizen.”



He described his close friend and former chief of staff as “an incredibly decent person”.



Malcolm Turnbull last week hit out at the Greens’ bungles, saying they showed incredible sloppiness.



Canavan’s Queensland colleague Ken O’Dowd admits the same can be said of Canavan.



“The prime minister said it and whether he said it to the Greens or said it to anyone else it’s ... sloppy,” he told ABC radio on Wednesday. “I don’t think there’s much of an excuse anyone can offer.”

Canavan was promoted to cabinet in 2016, after just two years in parliament and two months as the minister for northern Australia.

