The latest politician to be caught up in the Section 44 dual citizenship saga, Labor's Susan Lamb, has made a tearful speech in parliament explaining her fraught family history, and why it was not possible to obtain documents required to fully renunciate her dual citizenship with the UK Home Office.
The government has been chasing Lamb, the MP for Longman, since last year over allegations she still holds UK citizenship, and these attacks have stepped up since her colleague David Feeney resigned last week.
The government has threatened to use its numbers in the House of Representatives to refer Lamb to the High Court to determine if she was validly elected at the 2016 election.
Lamb renounced her citizenship before the 2016 election, but was informed by the UK Home Office after she filed the paperwork and paid the fee that she needed a copy of her parents' marriage certificate.
Lamb said that, as per the Australian Constitution, she had taken all reasonable steps to renounce her citizenship. She told the parliament on Wednesday that she didn't have a legal right to obtain her parents' marriage certificate, and could not get it from her father, who has passed away, or from her mother, from whom she is estranged.
Lamb said her relationship with her mother was a "complex and traumatic story" and one she had been forced to share as a result of the government's pursuit.
"One day when I was 6-years-old, my mum dropped me off at school, and she never came back to pick me up," she said. "I don't remember every detail of what happened afterward. I remember lots of tears, I remember lots of confusion. I remember my dad trying to explain."
Lamb said her father was then a single parent, and her mother was not in her life after that.
"She wasn't there at my youngest son's graduation just last year when he was 17," she said. "In fact, they have never met.
"She wasn't there to help me campaign. She wasn't there to celebrate when we won, or support me when I need it."
The dual citizenship saga that has plagued the parliament since last year had forced Lamb to revisit the painful family history, she said.
"I don't speak about this trauma, so when people ask me why I couldn't just call up my mother, well I hope this story gives you the answer.
"I'd rather not share this story with my closest friends, let alone the parliament of Australia, but telling people it was deeply personal circumstances wasn't enough for the political attacks to back off. So now it has been said."