Immigration minister Peter Dutton has until the Senate rises on Wednesday night to bring on a vote for his controversial citizenship reforms, or they will be scrapped.
Dutton's proposed overhaul of the citizenship process would introduce a four-year waiting period for permanent residents before they could apply for citizenship, a tough English language test, and an Australian values test.
The new laws passed the lower house in August, but have been deprioritised since being introduced in the Senate while Dutton looks for numbers on the crossbench.
Under a rarely used procedural motion, the Greens have put a clock on the government's timeline for passing the bill. The motion reads:
"That, if by 18 October 2017 the government business order of the day relating to the consideration of the Australian
Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and
Other Measures) Bill 2017 be discharged from the Notice Paper."
If the bill isn't passed by the Senate before close of business on Wednesday night, it will be struck from the notice paper for the term of this parliament.
If the government brings on a vote the bill is unlikely to pass with Labor, the Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team and Derryn Hinch lining up to block it.
Either outcome is a huge embarrassment for the Turnbull government and Dutton, who has been spruiking the reforms since early April.
If the bill isn't dealt with by Wednesday night, it would be the second time in thirty years the ruling government has lost control of the Senate notice paper.
“Dutton’s basically walked himself out to the end of the plank here," Greens senator Nick McKim told BuzzFeed News.
Senate agrees to strike Dutton's Citizenship Bill from the notice paper if it is not dealt with within 4 sitting da… https://t.co/lckqwYQZts
"It’s just a question of whether he wants to have the courage of his convictions and bring it on for debate and have it voted down, or whether he just takes the coward’s option and runs dead for the next 36 hours and then we can just wave it goodbye."
McKim is confident he has the numbers to block the passage of the bill and will be celebrating when the Senate rises around 10pm on Wednesday.
"It's going to be a good win for multicultural Australia and a humiliating loss for Peter Dutton."
Shadow minister for citizenship Tony Burke said Labor opposes the changes because they're snobbish, harmful and unfair.
"The university-level English language requirements are snobbery – it sends a message to all Australians that unless you have university-level English the government doesn’t want you here; and the proposed delays are harmful and unfair - leaving many potential citizens waiting for more than a decade before they are ever asked to pledge allegiance to Australia," he said.
Despite the bill not yet becoming law, prospective Australian citizenship applications since April 20 have been proceed under the the new rules.
At the time of publishing, the immigration minster had not responded to BuzzFeed News' questions about the status of the bill.