Nick Xenophon (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

NXT will not be supporting this motion. Senator Nash has been declared elected. She has an obligation to her New South Wales constituents to perform her duties as a senator for New South Wales and any other higher office that she has been appointed to. Until some competent authority decides that Senator Nash is ineligible to hold office as a senator or minister, she should continue to hold those offices. In supporting the referrals of questions about a number of senators' eligibility to the High Court, the Senate has acknowledged it is not a competent authority and we should not double-guess the learned justices who sit on the bench of that court. She should continue to carry out her Senate and ministerial duties, supported by the de facto offices doctrine that essentially says that, in the event that the High Court does make a decision of ineligibility, her decisions cannot be challenged on the basis of ineligibility, only on merit—as is the case for any other minister.