Australia citizenship furore

This is Joseph

Here is a case where they missed the main argument.  In Australia a number of MPs have been disqualified because the constitution prohibits dual citizens from running for office.  The referenced article asks why MPs will not be forced to repay their salaries when welfare debts are collected all of the time.  Now I am not necessarily a great fan of putting in place debt collection on the most vulnerable.  But that's not the real issue here.

The real issue is that you don't want to raise the stakes any higher.  As it is, being disqualified is a terrible process for a politician to go through.  Forcing the unexpectedly unemployed person to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars can well add destitution to the consequences. 

And, in some cases, this may be out of proportion to the crime.  In some cases MPs were either sloppy, cavalier, or deceptive and this makes sense.  These are not traits one would want.  But how can you be sure you don't have citizenship somewhere?  After all, many people have overseas links and it is often possible that a parent has taken actions that you are unaware of (estrangement does happen).  Or, even more likely, is ambiguity like in the case of Susan Lamb.  She might have UK citizenship but cannot prove it and so cannot renounce it. 

In the case of these types of complex administrative cases, being punitive only makes a bad case worse.  I am all in favor of rooting out corruption but this would appear to run some risks of making defiance the most viable strategy and I am not sure that ends well.