CANBERRA, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Australian political candidates will have to disclose their birthplace and citizenship as well as those of their parents and grandparents before the next federal election under changes announced by the government on Thursday.
The new moves are designed to put an end to the country's dual-citizenship crisis, which has claimed the careers of as many as 14 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the past 12 months, without the need for a referendum.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered the review of section 44 of the Australian constitution in October last year, after the High Court ruled the elections of then Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and four other politicians at the 2016 election were invalid.
The bipartisan parliamentary committee said on Thursday that Australians should be forced to vote on changes to the constitution to ensure more citizens could run for Parliament and the electoral system was not manipulated.
Committee chair Linda Reynolds later told Australian Associated Press, "Section 44 is stuck in 1901."
"In the constitution it still reads that you have to be a bloke, you have to be over 21 and you have to be subject of Queen Victoria (to run for parliament)."
The committee noted that when all the disqualifications in section 44 are considered, including foreign citizenship, employment in the public service and an "indirect pecuniary interest in an agreement with the commonwealth," more than 50 percent of the Australian population was ineligible to run for parliament.
But Reynolds acknowledged a referendum "will not be positively received by Australians" and cannot be achieved before the "Super Saturday" by-elections triggered by the High Court's ruling against Katy Gallagher or before the next federal election.
Despite the committee's push to reform or repeal Section 44, Turnbull, speaking in Brisbane, said the government did not have time to deal with a referendum before the next election and the Australian people "expect us to deal with the constitution as it stands."
Even in the longer term, Turnbull said he "very much doubted" whether Australians would support a change to the constitution.
Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann said the government would instead "move to improve the existing candidate nomination process for elections."
This would be done to "minimize the risk of a recurrence of the eligibility issues" that have plagued the 45th parliament, in which 14 parliamentarians have resigned or been ruled ineligible since mid-2017 owing to dual citizenship.?
