Australian federal candidate spent 13 months clearing up 7 dual citizenships - Polidicks

When Tim Hollo began his quest for a seat in the Federal Parliament, he never expected it to take a president's signature and a 75-year-old document to renounce his dual citizenships. He knew from the outset he would have to confront Section 44 of the Constitution — the footnote proscribing dual-citizen politicians that in 2017 felled then-deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and 14 others. But the Greens candidate had no idea his fight for the new seat of Canberra would take him on a 13-month investigation to get to the bottom of seven possible citizenships, thanks to his itinerant ancestors. "I knew that as the child of refugees, with a pretty complex background, I was going to have an interesting time, but I had no idea how difficult it was going to get or how long it was going to take," he said. And it came down to the wire: just weeks ago Mr Hollo was prepared to withdraw, because he could not clear a surprise citizenship. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-16/tim-hollo-discovered/10817634?section=politics A reminder that the High Court takes a very literal interpretation of Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia - a person cannot be elected to the Commonwealth Parliament if they are even eligible for the rights or privileges as a subject or citizen of a foreign power. The means that potential dual-citizens (eg by ancestry) cannot stand, unless they have actively taken steps to revoke their potential foreign citizenship. And that’s even if that person never took benefit nor were ever aware of a potential foreign citizenship in the first place. Section 44 has led to about ~15 MPs resigning over the past few years.

Has anyone ever in this history of any parliament gotten elected with another citizenship and decide to benefit that country instead of his own? I feel like any country wanting to do that would just manipulate a native-born to do it.

It was most likely an oversight when the Constitution of Australia was being drafted. In fact, I do believe there was an alternative wording for Section 44 which was almost considered. Keep in mind that it wasn’t such a big deal in 1901. Back then, Australian citizenship didn’t yet exist; you could stand for election to the Commonwealth Parliament as long as you were a British subject (even if you were born in Scotland, India or Canada) and weren’t eligible for any other citizenships. And the British Empire was huge back then, of course.

In total, Carmella's family left Mr Hollo with five potential citizenships he needed to settle: Russian, Israeli (because all Jewish people are entitled to citizenship), German, Ukrainian (because the region his family came from is now part of the Ukraine) and Chinese. Being entitled to it doesn't mean he automatically has it. That's kinda bullshit just to fluff up the story it seems.

Being merely entitled to it is a disqualification from standing. It’s literally in the wording of Section 44.

how difficult would it be to amend this part of the constitution? i feel like this is extremely harsh

Needs to pass parliament and then a referendum needs to be held - it would need the approvao of a majority of voters in a majority of the states (>50% support separately in at least 4 of the 6 states). But there’s no will for it to change; the prominent constitutional change up in the air at the moment is constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples, and perhaps second in line is the movement for Australia to become a republic.