Coalition says citizenship crisis will last months but MPs will keep voting

The Turnbull government says if any more Coalition MPs are found to be dual citizens they will continue to vote in parliament until the high court settles their eligibility.

Arthur Sinodinos, the minister for industry, innovation and science, has said it was wrong for the Nationals senator Matt Canavan to promise to refrain from voting in parliament after he discovered he held dual Italian citizenship, because he did so when he did not know all the details of his case.

He said the Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, and the deputy Nationals leader, Fiona Nash – who have also discovered they are dual citizens – were right to keep voting in parliament until their eligibility was settled by the high court.

He said Joyce and Nash would be the standard for any other Turnbull government MPs who may be found to be dual citizens.

“I think the standard that’s been set will now stick,” Sinodinos told the ABC on Sunday. “What we need to do is make sure everybody takes responsibility for their own situation, in terms of members of parliament, and we work our way through this as quickly as possible, get the high court to make decisions relevant to what’s going on and we move on.”

The decision to keep all Coalition MPs voting in parliament is an attempt by the Turnbull government to retain control of the House of Representatives, where it holds a one-seat majority.

The attorney general, George Brandis, believes the high court won’t be dealing with the citizenship crisis that has embroiled seven MPs and senators until October, leaving that majority in the balance.

If Joyce is found by the court to be ineligible to sit in the parliament, it would trigger a byelection in his seat of New England.

Brandis said the legal advice he had received said there was no problem with Joyce and Nash remaining in the cabinet and making executive decisions.

“If there is anyone who is a threat to the integrity of the parliament at the moment is [opposition leader Bill] Shorten because of the devious tactics he has employed,” he said.

Shorten, whose father was born in the UK, said on Sunday that he renounced his British citizenship “many years ago” but would not provide documentary evidence, telling reporters: “I don’t feel any obligation to justify what I have just said because I know it to be true ... I don’t expect every MP to have to jump through hoops to start meeting a standard that we have already met.”

Shorten said all candidates for federal parliament should be aware of the citizenship requirements and criticised the government for turning a legal issue into a “parliamentary farce”.

“The advice about section 44 is on the candidates’ form when people nominate so it’s a matter of just reading the fine print,” he said. “Perhaps this is a problem in terms of the constitution that has been ignored but it is still the constitution of Australia and, until the constitution is changed, it’s the law.”

Shorten did, however, say he was willing to offer the federal government a “peace treaty” over the citizenship crisis. The Labor leader said Joyce and Nash should stand aside until the high court decides their fate but was willing to discuss the matter with the prime minister. However, he suggested that, if there was a controversial vote to be had in parliament, it should wait until the high court has made its decision.

“I think Australians want to see this government focusing on them, not these legal and political games,” Shorten said.

Sinodinos dismissed concerns that the validity of Turnbull government decisions could be challenged in court if Coalition MPs were proven to have been ineligible.

“The advice I have received to date is that decisions in the parliament and decisions by ministers, the validity of those decisions, will not be affected,” he said.

ABC host Chris Ulhmann then asked: “If it turns out that Barnaby Joyce should not have been in cabinet … people can take it to court, and we’ve seen plenty of ‘lawfare’, particularly from environmental groups, they may well decide to test that argument in another court?”

Sinodinos replied: “I’m not going to speculate on where the high court will come out. The point is that there was very strong advice given to the government about whether Mr Joyce stands [and] Fiona Nash.”

On Saturday, the crossbench senator Nick Xenophon said he would become the seventh MP to refer himself to the high court after he discovered he was a British overseas citizen.

He said he had received advice from the British Home Office that it considered him a British overseas citizen because his father, Theodoros Xenophou , was from Cyprus – a British colony until 1960 – and moved to Australia in 1951.

When Cyprus gained independence, most Cypriots lost their British citizenship except those who moved to one of nine countries, including Australia. This made Xenophon’s father a British overseas citizen, a status that automatically extended to Xenophon, who was born in Australia.

“The legal advice I have had is that I should just keep calm and carry on and wait for the high court to determine this,” he told the Nine network on Sunday.

On Sunday Shorten denied allegations Labor staffers had been involved in uncovering details of Xenophon’s UK citizenship.

“I rang senator Xenophon last night,” he said. “I understand that he’s upset at what would seem to be clearly quite an anachronism, a colonial loophole that he’s caught in... But I made it clear to him that whilst he may have made some intemperate remarks, and I understand he would be upset about being in this predicament, Labor had nothing to do with it. Full stop.”

The parliament has already referred Canavan, the Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam, and the One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts, as well as Joyce, to the court. On Friday night, Nash revealed she was a UK citizen by descent – the third member of the prime minister’s cabinet to be affected.

The senior Nationals MP Darren Chester conceded it had been a “rotten few weeks” for his party. “We need to be better at our vetting process when people nominate to be a candidate,” he told ABC television.

The high court will have a directions hearing on the matter on Thursday where a judge will get the parties together and agree to a timetable over the various steps towards the hearings.

“The commonwealth will be asking the court to deal with the matter urgently,” Brandis told Sky News. While the court will have a sitting in September, he thinks realistically the issue won’t be heard until the first fortnight of October.

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the high court had a record of dealing very quickly with urgent cases and hoped it will be cleared up within a couple of months.

“I think every Australian will be looking at this and thinking what a circus,” he told ABC television.

Xenophon said Joyce’s decision not to stand down was causing disruption on the floor of the House of Representatives.

“It would probably be simpler for the government if the ministers stood aside but it’s really a political issue, not a legal issue,” he later told Sky News.

At the conclusion of the last federal election, the government entered agreements for confidence and supply with some of the lower house crossbenchers as a precautionary measure, but last week independent MP Bob Katter said he would no longer guarantee supply and confidence to the government.

Xenophon confirmed his NXT party would still support the government on matters of confidence and supply.

Australian Associated Press contributed to this report