Laurie Oakes calls out ‘dopey’ Barnaby Joyce over citizenship bungle

9NEWS Political Editor Laurie Oakes has called out the government for its ‘smokescreen’ over deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship status.

In his final week in the job, Oakes pulled no punches in his assessment of today’s politics in Canberra, taking Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to task for questioning the trust of our closest ally in New Zealand.

“What we’ve got here is yet another Australian MP, this one happens to be the deputy prime minister, falling foul of the constitution because he’s too dopey to check his citizenship status,” Mr Oakes said.

“The New Zealand internal affairs minister says firmly it was Australian media queries that caused him to investigate and to conclude that Barnaby Joyce was Kiwi.”

Mr Oakes went on to say the Turnbull government, with its one-seat majority threatened, “needed a smokescreen” so it latched on to a question asked by a New Zealand Labor MP in their parliament.

“Malcolm Turnbull calls it a conspiracy, there are laughable claims about a foreign power interfering in Australian politics as though this is on par with Vladimir Putin’s hackers helping Donald Trump,” Mr Oakes said.

“Julie Bishop says she’ll find it hard to trust or work with the New Zealand government if Labour wins the forthcoming election there.

“Sure it wasn’t smart for someone in Australian Labor to involve someone across the Tasman in our domestic politics, but that’s nothing compared with our foreign minister suggesting the Australian New Zealand relationship is threatened.

“Talk about irresponsible.”