The embattled Liberal MP John Alexander says he still has no idea whether he’s a British citizen, despite mounting speculation on Friday that he would resign from federal parliament.
Alexander appeared at a planned fundraiser in Eastwood in Sydney on Friday afternoon to face a barrage of media questions about his citizenship status.
He said he was still waiting on British authorities to provide him with definitive advice on whether he was a UK citizen, and he didn’t know why it was taking so long.
Alexander said he had heard “nothing conclusive” yet, and he needed conclusive advice before resolving on any course of action. “When I find out what I find out, I will make a statement,” he said.
If Alexander quits before parliament resumes, the Turnbull government will tip over into minority status, because Barnaby Joyce is already contesting a byelection in New England courtesy of having been ruled ineligible by the high court.
If Alexander fails to return to parliament for the final two parliamentary sitting weeks in late November and early December, the government will have 73 MPs and Labor and the crossbench 74.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, revealed on Friday that Malcolm Turnbull, during private talks between the two leaders on Wednesday, had signalled that he might push the scheduled lower house sitting weeks back later in December, which would strengthen the government’s numerical position in the event Joyce prevails in the byelection on 2 December.
Turnbull said on Friday any MP who was satisfied they were not constitutionally eligible to sit in the parliament should step down. “If you are satisfied that you are not constitutionally eligible to sit in the parliament, you shouldn’t be sitting,” the prime minister told reporters. “That is fundamental.”
The prime minister said where there were still questions of doubt, cases should be referred to the high court. “It’s very important that the high court has the opportunity to determine these cases and the high court and only the high court that can determine whether somebody is eligible.”
The major parties remain in a finger-pointing impasse over a new disclosure system aimed at establishing whether parliamentarians meet the basic constitutional eligibility requirements, with the Senate set to resume on Monday for a one-week sitting.
If the Turnbull government fails to reach agreement with Labor before then, it is likely to bring its proposed disclosure system to the Senate to see if it can be implemented with crossbench support.
The government has also left open the option of referring the Labor parliamentarians who face questions about their eligibility, including Justine Keay and Susan Lamb, to the high court.
But Shorten warned the government against embarking on that course of action in Perth on Friday. He said the attorney general, George Brandis, had argued correctly that partisan referrals were a “very dangerous precedent”.
But he signalled that some of his own MPs may end up in the high court. “We are not ruling out that anyone shouldn’t go to the high court, but what we are saying is let’s get every parliamentarian to put all their facts on the table.
“Let’s have a common disclosure standard, everyone reports the efforts they made – what did they do, what did they know, what didn’t they know and what steps did they take – and then upon the survey of the evidence I think the parliament can make the next decisions.”
At a press conference on Friday, the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said if there was a “legitimate question mark” over any parliamentarian’s eligibility, he or she should be referred to the high court.
Asked about the cases of the Nick Xenophon Team MP Rebekha Sharkie, and the Labor MPs Keay and Lamb, who took steps to renounce their foreign citizenship but whose renunciation was not effective until after the nomination deadline, Di Natale said there were “conflicting views” on those circumstances but there were “legitimate questions that should be resolved by the high court”.
“While I think it is unlikely that any of the individuals whose names have been raised would be found to be ineligible because they have taken reasonable steps, there is enough uncertainty around each and every one of those cases that a referral to the high court would be legitimate.”
Uncertainty for the Turnbull government also continues on another front, with the high court on Friday delaying filling a Senate seat vacated by Fiona Nash with the next person on the ticket, the Liberal Hollie Hughes.
Next Wednesday the court will consider a challenge against Hughes’ eligibility because she took a taxpayer-funded job after the 2016 election.
Nash, who was deputy leader of the Nationals before being ruled ineligible by the high court in the so-called citizenship seven case, has made it plain over the past few weeks that she wants to return to politics, and is likely to attempt to do so in the event that Hughes is ruled out of serving.
But the next person on the Senate ticket for the Coalition in New South Wales is Jim Molan, the retired army commander, prominent conservative and friend of the former prime minister Tony Abbott.
