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Kiefel CJ

Bell J

Gageler J

Keane J

Nettle J

Gordon J

Edelman J

(i) he must be of the full age of twenty-one years, and must be an elector entitled to vote at the election of members of the House of Representatives, or a person qualified to become such elector, and must have been for three years at the least a resident within the limits of the Commonwealth as existing at the time when he is chosen;

(ii) he must be a subject of the Queen, either natural-born or for at least five years naturalized under a law of the United Kingdom, or of a Colony which has become or becomes a State, or of the Commonwealth, or of a State."}}

42 Since shortly after federation, Parliament has made provision for the qualification of candidates. Currently, those requirements are set out in s 163 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, pursuant to which an Australian citizen enrolled to vote is qualified to stand for election.

43 It is the evident intention of the Constitution that those of the people of the Commonwealth who are qualified to become senators or members of the House of Representatives are not, except perhaps in the case of a person "attainted of treason" within the meaning of s 44(ii), to be irremediably disqualified. They have the entitlement to participate in the representative government which the Constitution establishes. In oral argument this was described as the constitutional imperative. The purpose of s 44(i) neither requires nor allows the denial by foreign law of that entitlement.

44 Consistently with that view, the Court in Sykes v Cleary recognised that an Australian citizen who is also a citizen of a foreign power will not be prevented from participating in the representative form of government ordained by the Constitution by reason of a foreign law which would render an Australian citizen irremediably incapable of being elected to either house of the Commonwealth Parliament. In this regard, Mason CJ, Toohey and McHugh JJ said :

"It would be wrong to interpret the constitutional provision in such a way as to disbar an Australian citizen who had taken all reasonable steps to