Canberra's parliament is full of dual citizens (but you're looking the wrong way)

Cast your eyes a little further north, 4.1 kilometres north to be exact, to a building less assuming but also less obscured by a constitutional cloud.

The ACT Legislative Assembly made headlines last year when it recorded the first female parliamentary majority in Australian political history. But it's also rather progressive in other ways.

There are many things that can exclude a candidate from becoming a member of the Assembly. You can't serve as an ACT parliamentarian if you've been jailed for longer than a year, or if you've been convicted of certain crimes in the two years before you stand for election. You must also quit your public service job before the poll is declared.

But, unlike on the hill, you don't need to renounce your ties to other countries. And all three parties that make up the Assembly have foreign citizens among their ranks.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who's tuned into proceedings that ACT Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris has New Zealand citizenship. Despite living in Australia since 1998, she says "only New Zealanders really appreciate what it means to crack a mallowpuff on your forehead".

But with a discernable lack of accents, you might not realise that Greens crossbencher Caroline Le Couteur and Liberal MLA Jeremy Hanson have dual British-Australian citizenship.

Le Couteur was born in Liverpool, England, and came to Canberra at age four. Her father was Kenneth Le Couteur, the esteemed physicist, who was also one of the mathematicians recruited to Bletchley Park to decode German military messages sent through the Enigma machine. Aside from drinking a lot of tea, Caroline doesn't feel especially British, although the passport comes in handy when she goes to Germany to see her grandchildren.

Hanson has only visited his mother country once since he left at age 13, and doesn't even hold a British passport. "I have never applied and consider myself wholly Australian," he says.

Fitzharris may find another mallowpuff fan in the Labor caucus. Government whip Tara Cheyne is a New Zealand citizen by descent. Her Kiwi dad Peter moved to Mount Isa in Queensland to work as a labourer and lead smelter at the mines. He'd intended to travel around Australia but he met Tara's mother, Debra, and that was that. He became a fully-fledged Aussie in 1998.

Labor frontbencher Rachel Stephen-Smith is a British citizen by descent. She was born in Canberra but briefly returned to Britain with her folks shortly afterwards. When she returned to Australia, she came back via boat, likely giving this Minister for Multicultural Affairs a little more empathy with others who've made the journey from less fortuitous circumstances.

Some MLAs who were born overseas renounced their foreign citizenships long before they ever set foot in the Assembly. Liberal politician Steve Doszpot had to renounce his Hungarian citizenship when he became an Australian citizen in 1967 (although Doszpot say he's still trying to pay back the kindness Canberra showed to his refugee parents half a century ago).

His colleague Elizabeth Lee renounced her Korean citizenship when her family moved to Australia, but says her heritage is still a big part of her.

With others, it's not exactly clear whether they are captured by citizenship laws in other countries. Deputy Liberal leader Nicole Lawder was born in Panang, Malaysia to Queenslander parents. Tongan-born Liberal MLA Elizabeth Kikkert became an Australian in 2004 and believes she is no longer a Tongan citizen, as the country did not recognise dual citizenship before 2006.

So while the High Court is yet to rule on whether federal MPs with foreign citizenship should be turfed, its clear the ACT's parliament derives its strength from its diversity.

So should section 44 of the constitution be changed to let people with foreign ties serve in the Australian Parliament? If you ask our ACT parliamentarians (which I did), you'll hear everything from "absolutely" to some pretty emphatic fence-sitting.

The ACT Greens are all for scrapping the clause (unsurprising, given that it forced two Greens senators to resign). Le Couteur says the rule risked "disenfranchising entire sections of our diverse community". Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said Australia was a multicultural society "and our parliament should reflect this".

Labor's Fitzharris says it it a question for the Australian community, "one which I think many people are asking right now". Stephen-Smith believes people running for public office have "an obligation to know and comply with the rules".

Cheyne says there is a "genuine" reason for section 44 to exist, but it does not take into account the bearing that law changes in other countries have on Australian citizenship. "Given constitutional change generally has a very low chance of success, I think the High Court giving consideration to the interpretation of the section is the best option here," she says.

Liberal leader Alistair Coe (unsurprisingly) says changing the constitution is a federal issue; he says the same thing about same-sex marriage. However, Coe also says he regards the differences in experience and background among our elected members as an "asset".

Maybe it's time Australia did, too.

Katie Burgess reports on ACT politics for The Canberra Times.