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[Reelya]

It's passed the senate, but still needs to get the final vote in the house of representatives, so it's not law quite yet. The house of representatives isn't sitting this week, so maybe next week.

[Reudh]

So gay people are allowed to get married now.

It's passed the senate, but still needs to get the final vote in the house of representatives, so it's not law quite yet. The house of representatives isn't sitting this week, so maybe next week.

Notably, it passed with no religious freedom to discriminate amendments. That's really good!

Also, Victoria passed euthanasia laws just recently, with extensive protections to ensure that it is not misused. Pollies on all sides getting shit done. (Note George Brandis' comments; while they're commendable, I don't think he believes a word of them, he's simply being a shrewd politician).

[Reelya]

Meanwhile, right-wing independent Jacquie Lambie is goddamn reprehenbisble with her statements. She made a statement that 40% of Australia are "hurting" over the yes vote, and that won't people spare a thought for all the hurting bigoted fuckwits and their snowflake feelings about what other people get to do? (I pareaphrased that slightly). it defies belief. It's not like because they lost the vote, now they have to receive mandatory buttfucks or something. "it's none of your fucking business, get over it" is the concise retort to people "hurt" because of the "yes" vote.

It's also really two-faced. e.g. when Lambie loses a vote, she highlights the unfairness to the losing faction, but ... imagine if her side had won with 51:49, I can guarantee she'd be all "suck it, gay losers, Australia has decided, and we won. Majority wins, bitches. End of story.". Again, paraphrasing her general attitude, basically we all know she'd be gloating all about it, if the "No" people had won with even a 0.01% majority. "Do unto others" is a thing, however you also have to not be a doormat. Fuck Jacquie Lambie and other sore losers: since that's how they'd treat you if you lost.

[Dorsidwarf]

Meanwhile, right-wing independent Jacquie Lambie is goddamn reprehenbisble with her statements. She made a statement that 40% of Australia are "hurting" over the yes vote, and that won't people spare a thought for all the hurting bigoted fuckwits and their snowflake feelings about what other people get to do? (I pareaphrased that slightly). it defies belief. It's not like because they lost the vote, now they have to receive mandatory buttfucks or something. "it's none of your fucking business, get over it" is the concise retort to people "hurt" because of the "yes" vote.

It's also really two-faced. e.g. when Lambie loses a vote, she highlights the unfairness to the losing faction, but ... imagine if her side had won with 51:49, I can guarantee she'd be all "suck it, gay losers, Australia has decided, and we won. Majority wins, bitches. End of story.". Again, paraphrasing her general attitude, basically we all know she'd be gloating all about it, if the "No" people had won with even a 0.01% majority. "Do unto others" is a thing, however you also have to not be a doormat. Fuck Jacquie Lambie and other sore losers: since that's how they'd treat you if you lost.

*looks at all the brexiteers who were chanting "we will demand a second vote if we lose and we will never give in" and the remainers saying "The vote is final, if you dont accept it you're a sore loser" right up to the point where everyone suddenly realised brexit had won, at which point both sides swapped like they'd been stuck with hot pokers*

[MetalSlimeHunt]

the vote is final, and we will demand a second vote and we will never give in, and if you don't accept it you're a sore loser

[feelotraveller]

Somebody should have run a fact-checker over Reelya's statements (or those of the article that inspired them...).  I had it clearer a few months ago when I looked into it but to clear up a few points:

- Dual citizenship has been acknowledged for much longer than going back to 2002.  I'm not sure how much longer but definitely earlier than 1992 (Sykes vs. Cleary) when there was a previous High Court ruling which involved section 44 of the constitution where both parties were understood as having dual citizenship.

- Part of the ruling of the High Court in the above case was that candidates must take "all reasonable steps" to rid themselves of foreign allegiance (read citizenship in current context) precisely to avoid the situtation of a foreign power holding Australia political hostage by granting citizenship to candidates/representatives.  If they have made an honest attempt to do so and cannot they are still eligible to stand.  This was reiterated in the more recent ruling.

- More difficult is that being unaware of dual allegiance does indeed invalidate one from standing.  (So theoretically Turnbull could be in breach of the constitution if Putin has granted him Russian citizenship without him knowing...!)

- There has been an awareness of these issues for decades in Australian politics and the major parties (aka Labor and Liberal) have employed people to carry out citizenship checks in this regard.  This is the reason the current 'crisis' hit the minor parties significantly more seriously since they are not such heavy-weight corporations with similar employees.

Most of the above statements are supported by the comments of Antony Green, (one of?) the most astute Australian electoral analyst who works for the ABC (think aussie version of BBC).  One article for reference: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-25/antony-green-high-courts-question-after-matt-canavan-resignation/8742912 which was published before the recent high court judgement.  A search would probably turn up more and I remember an in-depth discussion on his blog as the events were unfolding - not sure if it would still be accessible.

Basically while acknowledging some of the historical problem, this has been bubbling away for some decades now and many people have been aware of it.  In fact pretty much all of the representatives affected recently have either not known about their dual allegiances, or claimed not to.

The recent debacle was triggered by a lawyer in West Australia who had been digging around (unsuccessfully) for dirt on the ineligibility of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbot back in 2011.  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-16/john-cameron-says-labor-liberals-colluded-over-citizenship/9157920 He found out Ludlum was a dual citizen and brought it to his attention.  Ludlum, who claims not to have known, resigned pretty much immediately (I presume after fact-checking).  If memory serves Waters resigned the next day after Ludlum's shock resignation brought on a bout of fact-checking, at least amongst the Greens.  I think all other 'offenders' disputed their status and went to court - some lost and some won.

As for constitutional reform the gist of it is that it is difficult, might very well fail, and is (said to be) being looked into by the government.  A decent recent article that covers most of the issues: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-28/what-does-the-high-court-decision-mean-for-dual-citizens/9094014

So amusement at the blue sky speculation aside I am relatively surprised at the general ignorance displayed, by the aussie crowd in particular.  Not that that amounts to anything really...

[Reelya]

It was rare until 2002, that's what it was about. The main historical case in question was for two people who held Greek and Swiss nationality, not another British subject nation. It never really came up as an issue that you were a British subject before those changes in 2002.

And it is sort of a weird decision now from the High Court. After all, all commonwealth nations have the same Head Of State. The whole passage pretty much meant something else entirely, because it was written for the pre-WWI British Empire era: the original intent of the constitutional clause was to allow all people of British descent, not to limit things entirely to people born in one little backwater colony. Now, that same clause is mainly excluding those same people. It's pretty funny.

[feelotraveller]

It was rare until 2002, that's what it was about. The main historical case in question was for two people who held Greek and Swiss nationality, not another British subject nation. It never really came up as an issue that you were a British subject before those changes in 2002.

And it is sort of a weird decision now from the High Court. After all, all commonwealth nations have the same Head Of State. The whole passage pretty much meant something else entirely, because it was written for the pre-WWI British Empire era: the original intent of the constitutional clause was to allow all people of British descent, not to limit things entirely to people born in one little backwater colony. Now, that same clause is mainly excluding those same people. It's pretty funny.

FACT CHECK FAILED

"Throughout the 1960s, Australian citizens were still required to declare their nationality as British. The term ‘Australian nationality’ had no official recognition or meaning until the Act was amended in 1969 and renamed the Citizenship Act. This followed a growing sense of Australian nationalism and the declining importance for Australians of the British Empire. In 1973 the Act was renamed the Australian Citizenship Act. It was not until 1984 that Australian citizens ceased to be British subjects."

Source: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs187.aspx

Got any references for your conjectures?

[Reelya]

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. What you cited just proves the point I was making.

If all Australians were considered British subjects until 1984, firstly, this isn't the same thing as dual citizenship. Because a subject of an empire isn't the same thing as a citizen. (see status of British overseas territories until recent amendments). And even if it is considered the same as being a dual citizen, then everyone lost British citizenship in 1984 and had that converted to Australian citizenship. We didn't all become dual citizens. We never were all dual citizens. Your point is just not understanding what citizen even is.

Secondly, it makes my point that Section 44 was never intended to exclude British subjects. Since everyone in Australia was a British subject then the phrase "allegiance to a foreign power" cannot be said to have excluded anyone with British nationality until 1984 at the very earliest. After all, the entire nation of Australia had that same allegiance, so it would have been ridiculous to interpret the law that way until fairly recently.

[feelotraveller]

Lets see what you have said and then maybe my point will become clear.  I quote in case you edit it out in the meantime.  Already copped that twice three times from you today...

Dual citizens didn't exist before 2002 in Australia, so if you were an Australian citizen (which you had to be to run) then it was fine before.

A lot of your reasoning revolves around this point, since from it is drawn the conclusion that the issue of dual citizenship as an exclusion for representing in parliament could not arise earlier.  But it is patently wrong.  We both agree that prior to 1969 (and maybe extending to 1984, I think there's some gray there...) Australian citizenship actually meant British citizenship.  But guess what?  At least as far back as 1948 British citizens could potentially be dual citizens: "Since the British Nationality Act of 1948, there is in general no restriction in UK law on a British national holding citizenship of other countries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law#Multiple_nationality_and_multiple_citizenship  And further at least since 1984 (or whenever we began to have properly Australian citizenship) Australians citizens have been able to hold dual citizenship.  So it has been an issue under the British citizen understanding since at least (I'm no expert) 1948, and under the Australian citizen understanding since at least 1984, so continuously since at least 1948 right up until the present.  (Makes me think that the 1992 case was actually the major parties testing the water with the High Court - feel free to dismiss this aside.  )

p.s.  In case it matters Section 44 is some more broad and specific than the latest version of your above post admits to.  Quoting from the the Antony Green article I linked above:
"Is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen [of a foreign power]."

p.p.s  I most certainly do not want to get into the endless arguments you seem to perpetuate and the constant ground shifting and revisionism which poisons the discussion.  Which is my way of saying, I've had my say, feel free to carry on.  But hopefully I've thrown a bit more light on the subject for others...

Quick edit: a fourth set of changes (I might even have missed a few revisions?) makes some of the above a bit wierd, but I'm gone. 

[Reelya]

Why are you so keen to make this a personally snarky thing (with ALL CAPS shouting etc) then going "p.p.s  I most certainly do not want to get into the endless arguments you seem to perpetuate and the constant ground shifting and revisionism which poisons the discussion" that's just being deliberately inflammatory. After all, you came in here gunning for me from the start with a deliberately hostile attitude, it's ridiculous to upbraid someone for merely defending their point of view.

You're just going full ad hominem mode now, and doing it in the most passive-aggressive manner possible.

EDIT: And yep, you did in fact make the main point I originally made: which was that Section 44 was never intended to exclude British subjects from running for office. After all, the entire nation consisted of nothing but British subjects until fairly recent history. "acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen [of Britain]" described everyone in the entire nation. And I'd argue, we still do, as our sovereign is still the Queen of England. This is why I think the court decision is in fact still questionable.

EDIT2: and come to think about it: why "fact check failed". What I wrote was that (1) it "never came up as an issue" that British nationals weren't able to run in elections until recently. A hypothetical problem that nobody picked up on, and one that "came up" are different things. Before 1984 it definitely wasn't an issue, since the entire nation was counted as British. Sure you're right that it could have come up sometime after 1984, but that didn't happen.

[smjjames]

He's not doing all caps shouting, at least not now.

One of the MPs that resigned and ran for election again got re-elected in what they seem to be making out to be an absolute landslide. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42207173 Just shows that voters either don't care all that much about the dual citizenship or they like him enough that it's not a factor.

[Reelya]

It's not really any surprise that nobody cares. In fact, it was guaranteed to increase his popularity.

New Zealand is a predominantly white rural nation with a very similar culture and close ties with Australia. This guy represents predominantly white rural voters in Australia. So you have a bunch of country folks, and their representative went down because of some patently silly big city court decision. Naturally, this whole thing only made him more appealing to his core constituents.

[smjjames]

Rural farmers are an ethnicity now? Lol, because that's what it sounds like you're saying.

Obviously it's a big deal just because it's a conflict with the constitution, but if voters don't care about it that much (as opposed to, say, the 2nd amendment here in the US), then that makes it easier on the politicians as to how to solve this.

There probably have been polls done by now asking people how they'd like to see this resolves.

[Reelya]

I edited it sorry, but here, the rural settlers (unlike USA) are almost all white and descended from British settlers. And this guy is part of the right-wing pro-farmer's rights party. His voter base is the whitest and most British faction of the whitest and most British areas in Australia. The point was, the people voting for him are all mostly the same ethnicity, which are descended from the same people who settled New Zealand.