The court’s ruling also forced the deputy National party leader, Fiona Nash, and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts out of the Senate. Two Greens senators, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, who had already resigned, were confirmed as ineligible by the court. “The decision of the court today is clearly not the outcome we were hoping for, but the business of government goes on,” he said. Speaking after the decision, Joyce, who was born in Australia but held New Zealand citizenship by descent from his father, said he had “no reason to believe that ... Canavan argued it was “doubtful” that he ever was an Italian citizen, because a 1983 constitutional court decision that Italian citizenship can be passed down through the maternal line might not have been retroactive to his birth in 1980.

Source: The Guardian October 27, 2017 03:36 UTC