The Liberal Party has declared Victorian MP Julia Banks is in the clear and her eligibility for the Federal Parliament - as a potential dual citizen of Greece - is not in doubt after a day of high drama that at one point saw the Turnbull government's slender one-seat majority in question.
In a statement issued late on Friday evening, a spokesman for the federal Liberal Party said: "We have received confirmation from the Greek Embassy that, according to records, Julia Banks is not registered as a Greek citizen and also is not entitled as a Greek citizen."
That statement is designed to put to bed doubts about Ms Banks' status as, or entitlement to, Greek citizenship.
Ms Banks had earlier declared to Fairfax Media that "I have never taken up Greek citizenship" and that "I was born in Australia as was my mother. My father was born in Greece. Both my parents were Australian citizens at the time of my birth."
There had been growing concerns in the Victorian Liberal Party through Thursday and Friday that as Ms Banks' father had been born in Greece - and some of her siblings had acquired Greek citizenship - she may be in breach of Section 44 of the constitution, as Greek citizenship may have been automatically conferred through her father.
Section 44 precludes people from being candidates for the federal parliament if they are "under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power".
Ms Banks won the marginal seat of Chisholm with 51.2 per cent of the two-party preferred vote at the 2016 election. It was the only seat won by the Liberal Party from Labor and the Turnbull government holds power in the lower house by just one seat.
If a byelection was held, Labor would fancy its chances of reclaiming the seat. That would mean the Turnbull government held just 75 seats in the 150-member house and would need to rely on the crossbench, including a number of independent MPs, to hold government.
Federal politics has been rocked in the last three weeks as former Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam have quit Parliament and Nationals senator Matt Canavan has quit cabinet, pending the outcome of a High Court case, over dual citizenship issues.
There are also serious questions facing One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts over possible British citizenship.
One of Australia's top constitutional experts, law professor George Williams, had told Fairfax Media that Ms Banks' status as a lower house MP could be in doubt because it wasn't clear if she was automatically entitled to Greek citizenship because her father was born in the Hellenic Republic – whether or not she activated it.
Professor Williams said "the question for me is whether you are a citizen of Greece if you are not entered into the roll".
"In some countries it's not an issue, you can simply be a citizen. Larissa Waters was caught out without taking any steps [to become a citizen]," he said.
"It's a matter for Greek law whether it's enough for her to be considered to have these rights without having taken any steps to be a citizen herself. If that is the case, she would be disqualified even though she has not actually taken any positive steps in that direction herself.
"The requirement under Australian law is that she take every reasonable step to divest herself of citizenship rights from another country. And so the question is, has she divested herself of those rights if they are conferred upon her?"
A spokesperson for the Greek embassy in Canberra confirmed Ms Banks would have acquired the right to citizenship by blood when she was born – just as Nationals senator Matthew Canavan had acquired Italian citizenship – but that it needed to be "activated".
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