CANBERRA: Australia’s High Court ruled on Friday that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is ineligible to remain in parliament, a stunning decision that cost the government its one-seat parliamentary majority and forced a by-election.
The Australian dollar fell a quarter of a US cent after the court announced its ruling and ordered that Joyce must seek a new mandate in his rural New South Wales state electorate.
That left Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s center-right coalition in the precarious position of a minority government. Turnbull’s Liberal Party is the senior party in a coalition with the smaller National Party, which Joyce led.
Turnbull must now win the support of one of three independent lawmakers to keep his minority government afloat, with two sitting weeks of parliament left until it recesses for the year.
Joyce was one of seven politicians whose eligibility to sit in parliament was thrown into doubt in recent months when it was found they were dual citizens, which bars them from being elected to the national parliament under Australia’s constitution.
Joyce, who renounced his dual New Zealand citizenship in August, said he would stand in the by-election, which is likely to be held in early December.
“It is a tough game, politics,” Joyce told reporters in the rural town of Tamworth in his electorate. “You take the hits and the sacrifices.”
All seven lawmakers accepted they were dual nationals when they were elected last year but had claimed they were unaware of their status at the time. Some were conferred a second nationality by birth, others by descent.
Of the remaining six, who were from the coalition and minority parties, four were also found ineligible to hold parliamentary office.
Some had already resigned. All were senators, which meant seats in the upper house of parliament could be assigned to party alternatives if they were ruled ineligible.
Australian Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue had urged the seven justices of the High Court not to interpret the constitution literally. He argued that five of the seven, including three Cabinet members, should be cleared because they were unaware that they had contravened the constitutional requirement at the time.
Australian court rules deputy PM ineligible for parliament
Australian court rules deputy PM ineligible for parliament
Turkiye blocks aid convoy to Syria’s Kobani: NGOs
- They said the aid was blocked before it reached the Turkiye-Syria border
- “Blocking humanitarian aid trucks carrying basic necessities is unacceptable,” said the platform
ANKARA: Turkish authorities have blocked a convoy carrying aid to Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria encircled by the Syrian army, NGOs and a Turkish MP said on Saturday.
They said the aid was blocked before it reached the Turkiye-Syria border, despite an agreement announced on Friday between the Syrian government and the country’s Kurdish minority to gradually integrate the Kurds’ military and civilian institutions into the state.
Twenty-five lorries containing water, milk, baby formula and blankets collected in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkiye’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, “were prevented from crossing the border,” said the Diyarbakir Solidarity and Protection Platform, which organized the aid campaign.
“Blocking humanitarian aid trucks carrying basic necessities is unacceptable, both from the point of view of humanitarian law and from the point of view of moral responsibility,” said the platform, which brings together several NGOs.
Earlier this week, residents of Kobani told AFP they were running out of food, water and electricity because the city was overwhelmed with people fleeing the advance of the Syrian army.
Kurdish forces accused the Syrian army of imposing a siege on Kobani, also known as Ain Al-Arab in Arabic.
“The trucks are still waiting in a depot on the highway,” said Adalet Kaya, an MP from Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party who was accompanying the convoy.
“We will continue negotiations today. We hope they will be able to cross at the Mursitpinar border post,” he told AFP.
Mursitpinar is located on the Turkish side of the border, across from Kobani.
Turkish authorities have kept the border crossing closed since 2016, while occasionally opening it briefly to allow humanitarian aid to pass through.
DEM and Turkiye’s main opposition CHP called this week for Mursitpinar to be opened “to avoid a humanitarian tragedy.”
Turkish authorities said aid convoys should use the Oncupinar border crossing, 180 kilometers (110 miles) away.
“It’s not just a question of distance. We want to be sure the aid reaches Kobani and is not redirected elsewhere by Damascus, which has imposed a siege,” said Kaya.
After months of deadlock and fighting, Damascus and the Syrian Kurds announced an agreement on Friday that would see the forces and administration of Syria’s Kurdish autonomous region gradually integrated into the Syrian state.
Kobani is around 200 kilometers from the Kurds’ stronghold in Syria’s far northeast.
Kurdish forces liberated the city from a lengthy siege by the Daesh group in 2015 and it took on symbolic value as their first major victory against the militants.
Kobani is hemmed in by the Turkish border to the north and government forces on all sides, pending the entry into the force of Friday’s agreement.
