Double trouble: Freo independent’s dual citizenship threatens to derail bid for federal seat

Wilson sits on a margin of 16.9 per cent, but in March Hulett almost managed to topple WA MP McGurk, who had finished the previous state election with a lead of 28 per cent.

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Hulett tapped into Fremantle voters’ anger over Labor dropping a new multi-story into one of the port city’s historic precincts, the many shuttered shops and neglected cityscape, and embraced social media to push her campaign.

She managed in just two months to whip up excitement about her teal-adjacent vision for an independent voice, a concern for climate change, and a passion for transparency.

Hulett’s state campaign drew media attention because of the closeness of the final poll, prompting her to go toe-to-toe with Wilson, the assistant energy minister who will be contesting his fourth election.

“I’m doing this from pure determination for a better outcome for our community, and I do not expect that some silly paperwork nonsense is going to stop me getting to election day and absolutely nailing the brief,” Hulett said in her podcast.

Ironically, Hulett’s passport issue is the same problem Wilson faced in 2018, when he was forced to step down, triggering a by-election, which he won.

At the time Wilson, like Hulett, claimed he had taken reasonable steps to relinquish his foreign citizenship.

“Both my parents were born in Australia. My great-great-grandfather came to Fremantle as a convict in the 1860s. I have never lived in the UK, and have only visited there twice, in 1998 and 2012, for a few weeks each time,” Wilson said at the time.

Wilson was one of fifteen lower and upper house members of the Federal parliament who were caught up in what has come to be called “the parliamentary eligibility crisis”.

The High Court ordered senators to be replaced by candidates from the same ticket at the 2016 elections while the members of the House or Representatives were forced to recontest their seats at by-elections.

Political commentators such as Notre Dame’s Martin Drum believe the federal seat of Fremantle is too big and contains too many suburban areas for Hulett to repeat her state election performance and challenge the popular Wilson.

Wilson’s refusal to toe the Labor line on AUKUS has also won him brownie points with Hulett’s base and that of Greens candidate Amy Warne.

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