There are layers of frustration around the resignation of Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters due to dual citizenship. The immediate loss of two of Australia's better parliamentary performers — on any side of politics — is unfortunate.
That it happened in the same fortnight that the Prime Minister misspoke about the primacy of Australian laws over mathematics, and the Immigration Minister unjustifiably accrued even more power, deepens the sting.
How a simple administrative error was left uncorrected to this extent is also frustrating. Both Ludlam and Waters, in spirit and practice, believed they were Australian and saw no other home than here.
For no one in their orbit and nothing in the AEC nomination process to have caught something so fundamental is unsettling — but perhaps not that odd. Presumptions of Australian-ness are more or less adjudicated on a certain kind of look and surname.
As writer and comedian Sami Shah caustically tweeted, 'Wouldn't have happened if Greens leaders weren't so white. PoC know their citizenship all times, in case someone's gonna try deporting us.' Even when I travel overseas, I pack a copy of my citizenship certificate like a talisman, to ensure I'll be allowed back in.
It has also been frustrating to watch an already self-absorbed political stratum in the throes of even more self-absorption. The Greens have much to contend with, but the issue has also gripped other federal politicians — more than 20 of whom were born overseas. The flurry of earnest press statements and tweets from foreign-born MPs and senators has never ensued from consequential things like Indigenous incarceration, abusive conditions on Nauru and Manus, climate change, and homelessness.
Lest we forget, dual citizenship was a flashpoint before this. In 2015, new laws were introduced to strip citizenship from dual-citizen Australians who fight in conflicts overseas, or commit terrorism or terrorism-related offences. Setting aside the merit of such policy (and it was heatedly debated at the time), the notion that citizenship is conditional for a specific subset of the citizenry surely undermines citizenship itself.
Which brings us to section 44 of the constitution, which disqualifies dual citizens from running for office or sitting in federal parliament. A formal act of revocation is therefore required from candidates.
"The matter has come to a head in a way that reflects contemporary realities and exposes the persistent hollowness of our understanding of identity. How can it be that duality is seen as a deficit rather than a surplus?"
It raises questions that strike at the heart of postmodern Australia, as well as the nature of our understandings of allegiance in a time when humans are more mobile and mixed than ever. Among younger Australians, a multi-ethnic, biracial or transnational heritage is increasingly the norm. They are being raised in a way that does not demand they choose.
Andrew Bartlett, former Australian Democrats leader and Waters' replacement as second-endorsed Greens candidate in the 2016 elections, has long called for amendment to section 44. In a senate speech in 2007, he said: '(If) we have nearly one-quarter of our community overseas-born, and a significant number on top of that whose parents are overseas born, there is a fair chance that the number of dual citizens we have is actually greater than the 20 per cent that is often used as an estimate.
'The more we go down this path — and it is a path that I support us going down — the more we are coming up against a major impediment in our constitution, which is that anybody who is a dual citizen is precluded from running for the federal parliament.' Former Greens leader Bob Brown had also repeatedly called for a reconsideration of the law.
Historically section 44 was invoked against a Catholic for allegiance to the Pope, an anti-warship protester, and an 'officer' of the Greek Orthodox Church. 'Foreign allegiances' were interpreted according to religion and political activity. Non-discriminatory laws have more or less put paid to these.
But the matter has come to a head in a way that reflects contemporary realities. It also exposes the persistent hollowness of our understanding of identity. How can it be that duality is seen as a deficit rather than a surplus?
Fatima Measham is a Eureka Street consulting editor. She co-hosts the ChatterSquare podcast, tweets as @foomeister and blogs on Medium.