Senator Nick Xenophon has approached the British Home Office to check his citizenship status, conceding he is unsure if he is a dual citizen.
He said he would release any citizenship documents as soon as he received them, hopefully by early next week.
“I am checking with them and seeking documents, and once I have them I will release them,” he told Guardian Australia on Friday.
Asked if he would refer himself to the high court, he said: “It depends on what the documents say.”
Xenophon, whose father Theodoros Xenophou is from Cyprus – a British colony until 1960, has been increasingly pulled into Canberra’s citizenship fiasco after he joked about his own citizenship status at a Sydney book launch last month.
This week, he confirmed he had not heard back from Greek and Cypriot authorities when he contacted them in an attempt to renounce any possible foreign citizenship. He has now approached the British Home Office for clarification.
“I think Australia is creating a lot of employment for the British Home Office right now,” he said on Friday.
“We’ll just have to wait for [them] to provide us with all the information, and I’m happy to release it all, which I hope I’ll have by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. The high court will be very, very, very busy in the next few months. This just shows you how section 44 [of the constitution] is in some respects quite imprecise.
“I’ve done everything in good faith. I’ve never had citizenship of another country, I don’t ever want to have citizenship of another country. There is no better country in the world than to have citizenship of Australia.
“So what can I do? I’m making the inquiries because I’m getting inquiries from the media and I’m being as open as I possibly can be in terms of what I’m doing, and as soon as I get that paperwork I’ll give it to you all.”
Xenophon is the latest federal MP to question his own eligibility for parliament.
On Thursday evening, the Turnbull government’s crisis over dual citizenships intensified as the deputy leader of the National party, Fiona Nash, joined Barnaby Joyce in referring herself to the high court – in her case, on the basis that she has British citizenship by descent.
Nash made a short, unheralded statement to the Senate on Thursday evening just before the adjournment, confirming the likelihood of her dual citizenship. She made it plain that like Joyce, but unlike the former resources minister and fellow National Matt Canavan, she intended to remain in her leadership and cabinet roles.
Xenophon told Fairfax Media on Friday that he would not resign if it was confirmed he had British citizenship by descent.
“It has to go to the high court,” he said.
“You let it go to the high court, that is what you do. That is the appropriate thing to do, I think.”
The Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters are the only politicians to resign from parliament upon learning of their dual citizenship.
