It is now five months to the day that then-Greens Senator Scott Ludlam opened the pandora's box of citizenship with his resignation from the Upper House.
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His citizenship, he wrote in a social media post at the time, "is a thing".
Five months on, that "thing" has seen prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's slim majority reduced to a minority government, forced several politicians to resign and brought a dark cloud over the entire parliament.
On Monday, Mr Turnbull and his opposite number Bill Shorten finally reached a deal to ensure all MPs declare their full hereditary background to parliament.
It is a belated effort to limit the loss of political capital both sides are feeling in a debacle in which Mr Turnbull has everything, politically, to lose.
Mr Turnbull's decision to back an "audit" or similar mechanism comes too late to protect his, and his party's electoral future, in a long-running debate reminiscent of expenses scandals gone by; no politician wants to expose another's failure for fear his own may be too.
The hesitation that some politicians have brought to this issue builds little faith in the public in the honesty of those they elect.
While some, such as Labor MP Justine Keay, may hold their reputations intact for now, others, like former Speaker Stephen Parry, held their cards close in the hope of riding it out, a gamble that clearly did not pay off.
Irrespective of the varied, detailed situations in which some federal politicians now find themselves, the general public is little versed in Section 44 or the daily rumblings inside Capital Circle.
Rather, in a nation sinking inexorably into a deeper malaise with the political class, this crisis would seem, at best, to be manufactured of politicians' own ignorance of the nation's cornerstone legal document.
At worst, it could be seen as yet another sign of a political system governed by self-interest and a certain arrogance among some MPs that they are above the law.
The High Court has left none in doubt about the law and what it says, and yet after five months of headlines, resignations and prevarication, MPs will get another three weeks to confirm what they should have before nominating for election.
After the Rudd, Gillard, Rudd and Abbott experiments, Mr Turnbull has failed to cement his own grip on either his party room, or provide the leadership required in this latest crisis to grip the parliament.
One would feel for voters in, say, Bennelong, who might be pining for the stability of having John Howard as their local member, pre-2006, as they head to the polls for one of a number of by-elections brought on by this crisis.
The citizenship declarations, to be public on December 1, leave one last full sitting week for this year, where this debate will again dominate, perhaps interspersed with some finality - one way or another - on same sex marriage.
It is unfortunate that the best this parliament seems capable of when it comes to bipartisan solutions is one that attempts to protect parliament's occasional inhabitants from the baying mobs leaning on the fence outside.
