Wouldn’t Rule Out Running

TONY Windsor has spent the past month enjoying the South Australian desert and on news of Barnaby Joyce having dual citizenship said while he had not had time to properly contemplate if he would run in a federal bi-election for the seat of New England, he would not rule anything out.

“Section 44 is there so that people from other countries could not stand for our Parliament and I think there are good reasons for that, those rules ensure that the people we do have in our Parliament have a natural allegiance that is here,” said Mr Windsor.

“Even if people may have sympathy for Barnaby’s position, or Scott Ludlam’s, section 44 is one of the things that is front and centre in terms of running for election and ignorance is not a defence,” he said.

“Barnaby Joyce himself made some damning statements when Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters ‘outted’ themselves, his own comments were that ignorance is not a defence and it’s not the time to be reviewing section 44.

“If it is time to review then let the others come back in and what precedence does that create.

“This is the dilemma they face and I don’t think any government will turn around and say Canadian citizens or New Zealand citizens or South African citizens can run for our Parliament,” he said.

“I can’t see how you can resolved this easily on the basis of ignorance but a lot of constitutional people will be raking over this, but my guess is they’ll leave it as,” Tony Windsor said.