Fatima Payman’s eligibility to sit in the Australian Senate remains under a cloud, with One Nation moving an inquiry today to establish whether the former Labor senator should be referred to the High Court.

Party leader Senator Pauline Hanson said the tough standards applied to elected representatives during the 2017 eligibility crisis had not been applied to Payman.

“If she’d been elected in 2016 instead of 2022, she would have been referred to the High Court like all the others,” Senator Hanson said.

“If she’d been elected as a conservative in 2022, I suspect she’d be referred right away.

“Despite securing agreement from Labor and the Coalition yesterday morning to table correspondence between myself and the President of the Senate regarding this matter, the Greens moved to block it yesterday afternoon. This morning however, the documents have been tabled despite opposition from Payman, the Greens and cross bench senators Thorpe and Tyrrell.

“The Greens have never respected our Constitution. Marxists always despise the institutions of democracy. I’m sure they’d love to dismantle the Constitution and replace it with some version of the communist manifesto.

“Try as they might, however, they can’t wish this matter away. I’m not the only one in Parliament questioning the surprising lack of documents in Payman’s disclosure supporting her claim she took reasonable steps to renounce her Afghan citizenship.

“Representatives caught in the 2017 crisis were required to provide a lot more evidence of their efforts than Payman has been. It sets a dangerous precedent. There’s a very good reason why the architects of our Constitution required that our elected representatives have undivided loyalties.

“It’s also the expectation of the Australian people that no foreign citizen or dual citizen be permitted to sit in the seat of our democracy. While the Greens don’t care about the expectations of the Australian people, I do.”

ENDS