Kiefel CJ
Bell J
Gageler J
Keane J
Nettle J
Gordon J
Edelman J
30.
birth and does not affect her status as a Canadian citizen. The registration of Ms Waters' birth with the Australian High Commission[1] did not affect her acquisition of Canadian citizenship. The sole basis on which Ms Waters could lose her citizenship from the date of her birth until June 2014 was by way of renunciation. For a closed period between June 2014 and June 2017 there were limited circumstances in which the government of Canada was empowered to revoke the citizenship of persons born in Canada. These provisions have since been revoked with retroactive effect. Ms Waters maintained her Canadian citizenship until her renunciation of it.
Ms Waters was incapable of being chosen or sitting as a senator under s 44(i) of the Constitution, and so there is a vacancy in the representation of Queensland in the Senate for the place for which Ms Waters was returned.
Senator Malcolm Roberts
Senator Roberts completed the nomination for election as a senator for Queensland on 3 June 2016. He stated that he was an Australian citizen by naturalisation and that he was not by virtue of s 44 of the Constitution incapable of being chosen as a senator. Senator Roberts was returned on 5 August 2016 as an elected senator for Queensland at the general election for the Parliament held on 2 July 2016. The Senate resolved to refer questions to this Court concerning whether there is a vacancy in the representation of Queensland for the place for which Senator Roberts was returned following the submission of documents to the Senate that suggested that Senator Roberts was a citizen of the United Kingdom at the date of his nomination.
The reference gave rise to some disputed questions of fact. These were determined by Keane J in reasons delivered on 22 September 2017[2]. His Honour summarised the uncontroversial evidence as follows. Senator Roberts' father was born in Wales in 1923. His mother was born in Queensland in 1918. Around 1946, his father moved to India to work as the manager of a coal mine. His father travelled to Australia around 1954 where he met and married Senator Roberts' mother. After an Australian passport was issued to the mother in September 1954, she and the father moved to
