Shock update on Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship bungle

It has been confirmed that Barnaby Joyce, the deputy prime minister is indeed a citizen of New Zealand.  

New Zealand’s Internal Affairs Minister, Peter Dunne, confirmed that Joyce is a New Zealand citizen under the Citizenship Act of 1948.

It is not clear what Joyce’s next move will be following the shock revelations. 

Joyce made the stunning admission in parliament this morning that he may be a dual citizen. 

“Last Thursday afternoon the New Zealand High Commission contacted me to advise that on the basis of preliminary advice from their department of internal affairs, which had received inquiries from the New Zealand Labor Party, they considered that I may be a citizen by descent of New Zealand,” he said.

“Needless to say, I was shocked to receive this information. I have always been an Australian citizen, born in Tamworth, just as my mother and my great-grandmother (were) born there 100 years earlier.

“Neither I, nor my parents, have ever had any reason to believe that I may be a citizen of any other country.”

Parliamentary reporters in Canberra tweeted this morning that Joyce had received legal advice that he may be a dual citizen of Australia and NZ, and that he’d referred the matter to the High Court for a ruling.

Read more: Barnaby Joyce latest MP to be caught up in dual-citizenship bungle

Stephanie Dalzell, an ABC reporter based at Parliament House, tweeted that Joyce told parliament he was “shocked when the NZ High Commission contacted him to advise him that he may be a citizen.

She tweeted that the National Party leader’s father was born in NZ but came to Australia in 1947.

Under section 44 of the constitution, anyone holding a dual citizenship is ineligible to hold elected office. 

Given the swathe of MPs recently caught out by this rule, do you think it needs to change?