Aussie DPM’s by-election win boosts troubled coalition

SYDNEY: Australia’s deputy prime minister has easily won a crucial by-election triggered by a dualcitizenship crisis that threatened the ruling coalition’s grip on power.

Barnaby Joyce’s (pic) emphatic re-election in the Saturday polls brought relief to a government which lost its slim parliamentary majority over the citizenship saga, and as it battled falling voter support and internal division.

“This has been a stunning victory,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told supporters on Saturday in Tamworth, a city in Joyce’s largely rural seat in New South Wales state.

“Barnaby Joyce has been re-elected member for New England with what appears to be the largest swing to the government in the history of by-elections in Australia.”

Counting was ongoing, but Joyce had so far picked up 64.6% of the vote, with his closest rival Labor’s David Ewings at 11.3%.

Several members of the ruling Liberal-National coalition were turfed out of their seats after the High Court in October reaffirmed a constitutional provision barring dual citizens from serving in federal parliament.

In the lower House of Representatives, where the coalition held a narrow one-seat majority, Joyce and ex-tennis star John Alexander had to recontest their seats in by-elections.

Joyce had automatically acquired New Zealand citizenship through his father and renounced his Kiwi nationality so he could run again.

Alexander resigned from parliament after saying he was most likely a dual British citizen, but it was revealed later that it was unclear if he was even entitled to British nationality.