Jacqui Lambie becomes eighth Australian lawmaker to resign over dual citizenship

A constitutional crisis roiling Australian politics claimed a new victim on Tuesday with the resignation of the eighth lawmaker to be felled by a once-obscure rule barring dual citizens from federal office.

The departure of Jacqui Lambie, a colourful independent senator from Tasmania, came after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s centre-right government lost its grip on parliament as MPs were toppled by the citizenship issue.

Lambie announced her resignation in a tearful speech, telling MPs she had just learned she held British nationality from her Scottish grandfather and father.

“Anyone who knows my father will be shocked to think of him as anyone else than an Aussie,” Lambie told the Senate, adding, “My dad believed he renounced his citizenship years ago.”

But she said that following the resignations of other politicians who held dual citizenship by descent, she made enquiries with British authorities into her situation.

“It is with great regret that I have to inform you that I had been found ineligible by way of dual citizenship,” she said.