The Australian High Court has unanimously ruled that the country's deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, is ineligible to be an MP, removing the government’s single-seat majority in the lower house.
Joyce, along with four Senators, was disqualified because he held dual citizenship at the time he was elected, in contravention of Section 44 of the Australian constitution. Two other Senators have been allowed to stay.
Joyce held New Zealand citizenship, which he received automatically “by descent” from his New Zealand-born father. Joyce has announced he will recontest his seat in parliament at a by-election in early December.
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“The decision leaves the government without its working majority in the House of Representatives, although it will continue to govern with confidence and supply from a few crossbench MPs,” The Guardian says.
The four senators who lost their seats – Fiona Nash, Malcolm Roberts, Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam – will be replaced with the candidates who came second in the 2016 election.
The ruling casts legal doubt over a number of decisions made by Joyce and Nash, who were both ministers in the Turnbull government.
Deputy leader of the opposition, Tanya Plibersek, has said her party will seek to revisit several key pieces of legislation which were passed by the government using its single-seat majority, while Joyce was ineligible to vote.
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