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The maverick independent who crushed high-flying Labor Senator Kristina Keneally in Saturday’s election has accused Labor of smear tactics after questions were raised about her eligibility.
Dai Le, who achieved a remarkable underdog electoral victory as an independent over Kristina Keneally at the election, said the claims were attempts to ‘smear me and try to damage my reputation’.
The claims centre around whether Ms Le nominated for the southwest Sydney seat of Fowler while still being a citizen of Vietnam, the country she grew up in until she was seven.
A a report claimed she failed to indicate on electoral forms when and how she gave up her Vietnamese citizenship.
Independent MP Dai Le is facing questions over whether she was eligible to stand following her stunning and historic win over Labor’s Kristina Keneally in Saturday’s election
Under Section 44 of the Australian Constitution, someone who nominates for election to the Australian Parliament cannot be a citizen of a ‘foreign power’.
Ms Le reportedly ticked that she had never been a citizen or subject of another nation on her declaration to the Australia Electoral Commission in her nomination form.
The spaces that a candidate must fill in to say how and when they ceased being a citizen of another country were left blank and no documentation was supplied.
Ms Le accused Labor of putting out the story and flatly denied it in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
‘Over the last few days, the Labor Party has been trying to smear me and try to damage my reputation, dragging my family including my son into stories,’ she wrote.
‘I can confirm that the AEC accepted my application to stand for the Federal Election and that I’m not a subject or a citizen of another country, and was not when I lodged my nomination form with the AEC prior to the close of the nomination.’
She also wrote that the ALP needed ‘to accept the people’s democratic decision who have elected me to represent’.
Ms Le took to Facebook to accuse Labor of trying to smear her after questions were raised over whether she was still a citizen of Vietnam, the country she fled as child, which could disqualify her from running for parliament
Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally was parachuted into the ultra-safe Sydney Labor electorate of Fowler but saw a huge swing against her to hand Ms Le an unlikely triumph
Ms Le and her family fled Vietnam in 1975 and after several years in Hong Kong and Filipino refugee camps they arrived in Australia in 1979.
The High Court previously ruled candidates who were citizens of another country at the time of their nomination could not sit in parliament, even if the person took reasonable steps to renounce their other citizenship.
However, a court case over Ms Le’s eligibility would only arise if she was challenged by Labor or the matter was referred by the House of Representatives.
University of Sydney constitutional law specialist Anne Twomey told The Australian that Ms Le would have had Vietnamese citizenship at some point, so ticking the box to say she never had foreign allegiance seemed a bit ‘peculiar’.
However, Professor Towney stressed she could not be sure of Vietnamese law or whether Ms Le would be disqualified from parliament.
Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone, who is Ms Le’s close political ally, told The Australian he believed she had a letter from the Vietnamese consulate that proved she renounced citizenship.
‘She’s not a citizen of Vietnam, she’s never been a citizen, she checked that out, this is just someone getting a bit excited, they’re all going to end up with egg on their face,’ he said.
‘She doesn’t have to explain that to anybody. If someone wants to take her to court, let them take her to court.’
Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone, a close political ally of Ms Le, believes that she has a letter from the Vietnamese consulate proving that she is no longer a citizen of that country
Labor parachuted Ms Keneally from the Senate into Fowler, which the party has held since its creation, and was expected to comfortably win again despite disquiet over ditching of aspiring candidate, local lawyer Tu Le.
Ms Le, who previously has stood for the Liberals in state elections, said Fowler’s electorate, which has a large Vietnamese community, felt insulted by Labor’s ‘arrogance’ of presuming they could drop in a favoured candidate.
Ms Keneally lives on the other side of Sydney on Scotland Island, on the northern beaches, in a multimillion-dollar mansion.
Labor suffered a 16 per cent swing against it to lose Fowler to Ms Le, defying the national trend that saw the party take office.
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