CANBERRA, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten have failed to reach an agreement on how to solve the citizenship saga plaguing the nation's politics.
Under Section 44 of the Australian Constitution, anyone who is a citizen of any country other than Australia is ineligible to be elected to the nation's parliament.
The High Court in October disqualified four senators and one member of the House of Representatives from parliament for breaching Section 44.
The Australian Labor Party's (ALP) Justine Keay and Liberal National Party's (LNP) John Alexander are also likely to face the High Court after it was revealed both could be British citizens.
At a two-hour meeting in Melbourne on Wednesday, Turnbull and Shorten were unable to agree on how best to resolve the crisis.
Turnbull plans to introduce laws that would require every federal politician to disclose their citizenship status within 21 sitting days of the bill passing but would require the support of Shorten's Australian Labor Party (ALP) to pass the law.
Shorten believes that 21 days is too long, saying that politicians should have five days.
Turnbull has flagged adding an extra parliamentary sitting week before Christmas to ensure the saga is dealt with before the end of the year.
"We're also agreed that the matter must be dealt with before the end of the year," Turnbull told reporters in Melbourne.
"You're going to have 226 forms... (which) may have a lot of complex history and maybe legal information.
"It will take some time to consider and you've got to make sure that when the House and the Senate decide who, if any, should be referred, they do so having given it the consideration that it deserves."
Shorten said that Labor wanted to end the citizenship crisis as soon as possible so that the public could have confidence in parliament.
"We made some progress but unfortunately it is not yet resolved," he said.
