CANBERRA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Australian opposition has said it could challenge more than 100 parliamentary decisions made by Members of Parliament (MPs) disqualified by the High Court.
A research released by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) said on Monday that former Deputy Prime Minister (PM) Barnaby Joyce and and Fiona Nash, former minister for Local Government and Territories, had made 118 ministerial decisions or announcements since the July 2016 Federal election.
Joyce and Nash were among the five MPs ruled by the High Court as ineligible to serve in parliament on account of being dual citizens.
Joyce's seat in the lower house of parliament will be subject to a by-election and he, having renounced his New Zealand citizenship, is expected to win while Nash's position as a Senator will go to the next person on her party's Senate ticket at the last election.
The ALP has received legal advice that the decisions made by Joyce and Nash in their role as ministers could be challenged under section 64 of the Australian Constitution which requires every minister to be an MP.
"It is not difficult to envisage challenges being brought in respect of decisions that have had significant financial, environmental or other repercussions by corporations or persons with interests in reversing those decisions," Matt Albert and Matt Collins, both Queen's Counsels, said in a letter to Labor obtained by Fairfax Media.
The South Australian government has also sought legal advice on whether decisions made by Joyce affecting the state would stand.
Joyce on Monday urged the Labor Party to "go right ahead" and challenge the decisions, saying that it would be used against the governing Labor party in the Queensland state election campaign.
"The ones they want to reverse are the ones that help regional Australia, and as the Labor Party goes to an election in Queensland, this is your Labor Party fellas: it doesn't look after regional people," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Monday.
"If the Labor Party wants to challenge a whole heap of decisions to make poor people poorer and to show they have absolutely no vision of regional Australia, go right ahead fellas because we have got the Queensland election on and we will be reminding everybody about how completely and utterly out of place you are with regional Australia."
The threat of legal action came despite Australia's Attorney-General George Brandis on Sunday saying there was "no legal consequences at all" to the High Court findings.
"Most decisions that ministers make are in fact made by the Cabinet on the recommendation of ministers," Brandis said.
Bill Shorten, leader of the ALP, took time while on an official visit to Israel with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to blame the prime minister.
"Mr Turnbull's too arrogant for that and because of his arrogance and his poor judgment, we've now got the current turmoil," Shorten told reporters in Jerusalem late on Sunday night local time.
He said that the situation could have been avoided if Joyce had stepped aside from his ministerial duties while awaiting the High Court decision as Senator Matt Canavan did.
