Senator Katy Gallagher, the highly regarded former ACT chief minister, has only herself to blame for the attacks on her integrity that will be made by Coalition MPs following her involvement in the citizenship fiasco.
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Senator Gallagher, in a move that was strongly at odds with her well-founded reputation as a straight shooter, chose not to disclose she had held, and then renounced, UK citizenship up until May 2, 2016 in an address to the Senate in September.
The Senator, who on her own admission was a dual citizen when she entered the upper house to fill a casual vacancy in March 2015, did not renounce her UK citizenship until the lead up to last year's double dissolution election.
Because UK authorities took four months to process the documents, as opposed to the few days they took to determine former Senator, Jacqui Lambie, was a dual national, senator Gallagher was still a UK citizen when the nation went to the polls.
This means her eligibility will likely be referred to the High Court by the government, which has already suffered badly as a result of its own s44 breaches, before the end of the week.
This development is significant for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it makes a mockery of ALP claims the party's vetting procedures were beyond reproach and none of its members had dual nationality issues.
The second is Senator Gallagher needs to explain why she failed to disclose that she had held British citizenship on the day she nominated. When she addressed the Senate on September 4 she said only that she had renounced any possible entitlement out of an abundance of caution.
That appears to have been a lapse of judgement. It has left the senator open to allegations of misrepresentation by her opponents and may seriously damage her personal brand which has been built on candour, integrity and a reputation for full disclosure.
While Senator Gallagher steadfastly denies she is in breach of s44, telling Fairfax she had done "everything possible" to renounce her citizenship prior to last year's election, there are unanswered questions about whether the "reasonable steps" test applies in this case.
There is a view it is only relevant when it is not legally or practically possible to renounce foreign citizenship.
The other hurdle is that even if "reasonable steps" does apply, the High Court has yet to rule on what these might be. That needs to be resolved at the earliest opportunity.
Meanwhile Zed Seselja, the ACT Liberals' high profile 2013 export to the Senate, is not out of the woods on the eligibility issue either.
He has yet to produce documentary evidence backing his claim he does not hold Croation citizenship.
Earlier this year the Government demanded, and got, written proof from Bill Shorten he was not a dual national. Why is the burden of proof different in Senator Seselja's case?
