Josh Frydenberg denies Hungarian-born mother implicates him in dual citizenship saga
Updated
In a cruel twist of fate, another senior Government figure is facing questions over his citizenship.
Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg faces the possibility he is a dual national of the country that persecuted his Jewish mother.
Erica Strauss was born in Hungary and escaped the Holocaust to Australia, arriving as a child via a refugee camp in 1950.
Hungary has rules that can confer citizenship by descent, creating a potential problem for Mr Frydenberg, who has engaged an investigator in Budapest and made inquiries to the Hungarian embassy.
Mr Frydenberg has produced immigration entry documents from 1950 that describe his mother as "stateless".
He told AM that meant she was not a Hungarian citizen.
"It is absolutely absurd to think that I could involuntarily acquire Hungarian citizenship by rule of a country that rendered my mother stateless," he said.
"My citizenship is clear, I am an Australian and an Australian only.
"I was born in Australia to two Australian citizens."
Mr Frydenberg said even if his mother had been a Hungarian citizen, he was still in the clear.
"I have never sought to be a citizen of another country and neither has anyone sought to do that on my behalf," he said.
The suggestion Mr Frydenberg could have citizenship issues was first published in The Australian newspaper.
"It's a very sad situation where these sort of allegations are flying around making absurd propositions that people can be citizens of another country based on their parents coming to Australia as stateless persons," he told AM.
Topics: government-and-politics, political-parties, liberals, federal-parliament, parliament, australia
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