Section 44 is filled with traps that prevent certain classes of people from taking a seat in federal parliament.

The most well-known of these of late is the clause that insists parliamentarians must renounce themselves of any other citizenship prior to standing for election as an MP.

At face value the clause makes sense insisting our parliamentarians have no conflict of interest or divided loyalty.

Australia is a migrant nation and like many I hold dual citizenship (in my case Ireland) so I would be barred from running for federal parliament (the rule applies only to federal elections so English-born ALP candidate Danielle Slade is perfectly entitled to run for the state seat of Traeger).

So when WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlam announced last month he was stepping down because he “was informed” he had dual citizenship with New Zealand, I was unsympathetic.

My first though was, how on earth could anyone be unaware of their dual citizenship?

When Queensland Greens Senator Larissa Waters resigned a few days later it really did look as if the Greens had a problem sorting out small but important administrivia, a feeling highlighted by the lengths Labor party officials go to screen out their candidates such as Sam Dastyari spending $25,000 to renounce Iranian citizenship and Doug Cameron saying it took months to renounce his British citizenship (though it could never stamp out his Scottish accent!).

But when a third talented young senator – this time Matt Canavan of the LNP – fell on his sword the inadequacies of the wording were shown up, with Senator Canavan saying he was an unwitting Italian citizen at the behest of his mother (though it seems strange she would not have told him at the time of her application).

We now have almost every parliamentarian scrambling to show their bona fides.

I’m no fan of referendums but S44 needs to be updated to allow renouncement of citizenship in good faith before we run out of talent in parliament – Derek Barry