A South Australian senator from Nick Xenophon party’s has resigned from federal parliament after revealing she is a dual British citizen by descent.
Sky Kakoschke-Moore, who was only elected to parliament last year after working as a political adviser, has made the shock in Adelaide – making her the ninth federal MP forced out since the citizenship crisis unravelled in July.
‘Today I have received confirmation that I am a dual citizen as I have inherited British citizenship from my mother. I am heartbroken by this news. My mother was born in Singapore in 1957 to British parents,’ she told reporters.
Sky Kakoschke-Moore, who was born in Darwin, has confirmed she is a dual British citizen by descent
Senator Kakoschke-Moore said the UK Home Office had advised her on Friday last week that she was a British citizen.
‘Usually where a parent is born outside of the UK they are unable to pass their citizenship on to their children where those children are also born outside of the UK,’ she said.
‘It was my understanding for my entire life that I was not eligible for British citizenship due to that rule.’
No longer allowed to sit in parliament: Senator Kakoschke-Moore resigns for being a dual Brit
The senator’s mother was given UK citizenship because Singapore was still a colony of Britain at the time of her birth.
The 31-year-old Darwin-born member of the Nick Xenophon Team is now the ninth federal MP to have breached Section 44 of the Constitution, which bars dual citizens from sitting in parliament in Canberra.
It comes as former tennis champion John Alexander runs as a Liberal candidate in his old northern Sydney seat of Bennelong, after he resigned from parliament for being a dual British citizen by descent.
Former Nationals deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce is also fighting a by-election in his northern New South Wales seat of New England after discovering he was a dual New Zealander through his father.
Senator Kakosche-Moore was elected in 2016 as a member of the Nick Xenophon Team
The Turnbull Government’s parliamentary majority would be over if either seat was lost.
Were Senator Kakoschke-Moore to resign from parliament, she would be the ninth dual citizenship casualty.
The list includes former Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and his deputy Fiona Nash, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts, Liberal John Alexander, former Senate president Stephen Parry and maverick Jacqui Lambie.