Abbott's citizenship - the plot thickens...

This is getting weirder and weirder, or perhaps more suspicious. The blogger who has raised the can of worms over Abbott's citizenship explains what's been happening that led up to his freedom of information request to get an "RN" document showing that Abbott was not a British citizen when he entered parliament. A simple thing you would think, but read what happens. Evidently asking for this RN form is a bit awkward:

In February 2014, I was looking at his Australian citizenship papers in the National Archive of Australia when they went secret. Disappeared off the screen and out of the NAA online archive. Strange and stranger. 

I delved deeper and found out about the Constitution, section 44 which stops dual nationals from being parliamentarians. So off I went to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to see how I go about getting a look at his renunciation papers. I found out these were called the Form RN. 

I had never made an FOI request before, so I asked the public servants in the department how you go about it. Peta Credlin contacted me and said if I ever lodged an application for an FOI peek at the Form RN, she would refuse it. Another why? 

Why would she say that? Why would the chief of staff of the Australian prime minister suddenly become a clerk class 5 or 6 and do FOI requests? 

Me, being who I am, waited until she was off in Washington with the boss before lodging the FOI application. I figured that being a liberal she couldn’t resist the chance of a holiday part paid by the public purse, I bet she would stay away for a holiday. It seems she did and the public servant I was talking to at PM&C was “that close “ to releasing the results of my FOI request. 

And then Peta Credlin came home, found my application and refused it. 

Similar story in the British Home Office, FOI requests by law have to be done within 3 weeks over there. Mine was held up for about a month as they went to and from the Foreign Office to decide if information could be released. In the end, they refused to release information about Abbott’s Form RN. 

So the form is still being kept hidden. But why? 

This has gone beyond a nutter trying to cause trouble, which I never ever set out to do. This is the prime minister of Australia hiding the only form that can prove he is in the job legally. more