A plague on parliament: Australia's citizenship crisis

The opposition attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, suggested that Turnbull might have been skirting against the separation of powers, coming "perilously close to directing the High Court." Not so, shot back Senator George Brandis. Turnbull, he explained on Radio National, knows a thing or two about the High Court, having presented cases before them.

Ambushed yet again, the government's latest tactic smacks of a retro approach, those bad old days when major parties would purposely use the disqualifying provisions of section 44 to eliminate an independent politician or a member of a minor party. Show us, ventures the coalition, the paperwork of Justine Keay, Susan Lamb, Brendan O'Connor, Maria Vamvakinou and Tony Zappia.

All those Labor MPs are said to have renounced their foreign allegiances, though the party has, as yet, to move on producing any relevant paperwork. Labor's own response is a line so standard as to be worrying. In refusing an offer from Turnbull that their own dubious cases be bundled up in the same government package for the High Court, Bill Shorten climbed the mountain of confidence.

"The Labor Party," penned Shorten in his note of refusal to the PM, "has the strictest procedures in place to ensure all candidates are compliant with the Constitution prior to their nomination for election. Therefore, I politely decline your offer." More fun, it seems, for the constitutional diggers.

Time and again since this constitutional crisis unfolded, the concept of strict procedures has itself been challenged. The application of due diligence, these episodes show, is an entirely relative matter, one often giving way to pure hope. But ignorance, in these cases, is proving far from blissful. Politically, it is even proving fatal.