If Barnaby Joyce was disqualified, PM Malcolm Turnbull would be forced to rely on the support of independents to prevent a successful no- confidence vote from the opposition Labor Party.<\/p>\n
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said on Monday he may not be eligible for parliament after being told he may be a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand, potentially posing a threat to the conservative government\u2019s hold on power.<\/p>\n
Australian politicians are not eligible to be elected to parliament if they hold dual or plural citizenship, a rule that has forced the resignation of two senators in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Joyce is the leader of the rural-based National party, the junior partner in the centre-right Liberal-National coalition government that has just a single seat majority in parliament.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s majority would be eliminated if Joyce was forced from office, likely triggering an election, political analysts said.<\/p>\n
Joyce, who was born in Australia, said he was told by New Zealand officials last week that he may be a citizen by descent.<\/p>\n
His mother was Australian and his father was born in New Zealand and came to Australia in 1947 as a British subject.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither I nor my parents have ever had any reason to believe that I may be a citizen of any other country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Joyce asked for the matter to be referred to Australia\u2019s High Court for a ruling on his eligibility.<\/p>\n
He said he would not resign or temporarily step down from office after being told by Australian Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue that he was likely to be cleared by the High Court.<\/p>\n
However, should the High Court rule against him, it would likely end Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
If Joyce was disqualified, Turnbull would be forced to rely on the support of independents to prevent a successful no- confidence vote from the opposition Labor Party.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if Joyce is forced out, Turnbull would call an election,\u201d said Peter Chen, a senior lecturer in government at the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n
Recent polls suggest Turnbull would lose an early election, with his government bleeding support to the populist far-right One Nation party, while moderates have flocked to Labor as Turnbull struggles to deliver on his progressive reputation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Barnaby Joyce was disqualified, PM Malcolm Turnbull would be forced to rely on the support of independents to prevent a successful no- confidence vote from the opposition Labor Party. Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said on Monday he may not be eligible for parliament after being told he may be a dual citizen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2039,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions\/2039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}