Why should Australians even care if a politician has dual citizenship?

So in the past week something remarkable happened in Australian politics that left a lot of us scratching our heads. Two Greens Senators, Co-Deputy Leaders Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, resigned from their positions after they both committed a major sin in the Australian parliament.

No, it wasn't using taxpayer dollars on helicopter trips. No, it wasn't a taxpayer-funded trip up to the Gold Coast involving a secret investment property purchase. And no, it definitely wasn't a shady sex scandal.

Dial up the outrage radar, people, because these senators committed the unforgivable sin of (wait for it)…holding dual citizenship. Insert dramatic oh-no-they-didn't music here. And maybe a meme of someone screaming in terror too.

Ludlam, who was born in New Zealand and settled in Australia before his ninth birthday, and Waters, who immigrated from Canada to Australia at the tender age of 11 months old, have broken a rule that has no relevance for the average Australian.

Under Section 44 of the Australian Constitution, a parliamentarian is ineligible to hold office in the Federal Parliament if they are "under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power".

OK, OK, it's a rule from the Constitution that dates back to 1901, a time when newfound nationalism and fears of international forces infiltrating were at play. Rules are rules, right? It's the Constitution!

Sure, the law is the law. Ludlam and Waters should've known the rules of the game before entering it. But it's hard to believe either of them would've been spinning in their chairs and having a Dr Evil laugh over the fact they've secretly got another passport stashed in the safe at home. Waters hasn't even set foot on Canadian soil since she arrived in Australia.
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But let's consider something for a second. Australia is a much more multicultural place than it was when the Constitution first came into effect. Back in 1911, when the first national Census was held, 17.10 percent of Australians were born overseas (majority of them in England). That would've been 761,600 people of the population of 4.48 million.

In the recent 2016 Census results released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of Australians born overseas hit an all-time high of more than 28 percent. That's about 6.8 million people out of the 24.5 million population we currently have.

That means 6.8 million of us would have to renounce our citizenship to another country in order to hold public office like Ludlam and Waters were able to.

Of all the things to lose your job over, dual citizenship seems like a strange one. Imagine serving an employer for nine years (as Ludlam did) or six years (as Waters had), with a list of notable achievements to your name such as addressing the UN ahead of a global nuclear weapons vote, helping to stop dredge spoil being dumped on the Great Barrier Reef and overturning cuts to domestic violence services, only to be forced to resign because of a technicality found in a contract?

Yes, the checks should've been made when they were running to be elected to the Senate. And it's certainly going to make a lot of future politicians dot their I's and cross their T's from now on. Or keep on hiding their dual citizenships and hope we won't notice.

There are at least 24 foreign-born federal MPs and senators, some of whom have since come forward to confirm they have renounced their citizenship to their birth countries, including Labor senator Sam Dastyari (Iran), Finance Minister Mathias Cormann (Belgium) and Greens senator Nick McKim (UK).

The only way the Constitution could be changed is by a referendum, which wouldn't exactly be an easy task. Only eight of the 44 referendums held in Australian history have been passed. And it's not like politicians' dual citizenship rights is the most pressing issue our country would be burning to have referendum about.

But you've got to wonder how relevant all of this is to the average Australian who just wants politicians who are committed to their constituents to do a good job.