Shorten rejects citizenship papers demand

Bill Shorten has challenged Malcolm Turnbull to provide evidence the opposition leader is a British citizen.

Government ministers say Mr Shorten should publicly release documents to prove he renounced his British citizenship by descent in 2006 before he ran for parliament.

"I say to Mr Turnbull: 'If you have evidence that I am still a British citizen, put up or shut up and in the meantime if you haven't got the evidence stop wasting the time of the nation and get back to your day job'," Mr Shorten told reporters in Mackay on Tuesday.