Tony Burke hosts Labor MP’s at Perth Convention Centre citizenship ceremony

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has invited WA Labor MPs fighting to win key battleground seats to a citizenship ceremony at the Perth Convention Centre.

Mr Burke has been under fire this week over claims he has hijacked the events to gain Labor votes, as polls point to a hung parliament at the upcoming Federal election.

Australian Electoral Commission officials were waiting outside the auditorium at the Convention Centre on Thursday as Mr Burke led the official ceremony for crowds of new West Australians on Thursday.

Another ceremony in Perth is set to take place on Friday, The Australian reports.

Labor’s MP for Hasluck Tania Lawrence and Labor MP Sam Lim — who is fighting for the seat of Tangey — were in attendance and spoke to the crowd.

Ms Lawrence reportedly told the crowd of new citizens about the boundaries of her electorate while Mr Lim spoke of his journey from Malaysia to Australia.

Liberal MP Ian Good­enough was also reportedly a guest of honour on Thursday.

Another citizenship ceremony will be held in Melbourne on Saturday before moving to Queensland, Brisbane and Toowomba.

A crowd of about 4500 people were made new citizens at Sydney’s Olympic park last Friday. A total of 6000 Sydneysiders were made new citizens over the weekend.

Mr Burke previously rebuked Coalition suggestions he had “rushed through” 12,500 citizenship applications ahead of the election for political gains.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton last week said Mr Burke had “departed from what would be a normal practice”.

“He’s just pushing thousands of people through citizenship ceremonies without any explanation that mayors are obviously up in arms about it,” he said on morning TV.

“And it’s right on the eve of the election.

“So obviously trying to put people into marginal seats.”

Mr Burke rejected the assertion and denied he was “fast-tracking” citizenship ceremonies for political gain.

“I (have) no idea which way these individuals are going to vote,” he said.

He said there had been a “huge backlog”, and different councils were “not having enough ceremonies”.

Mr Burke also said he thought the Australia Day ceremonies “might do a lot to clear the backlog, (but) turns out they didn’t”.

“I can’t hold ceremonies while Parliament is on. So Parliament is now finished so I’m holding ceremonies.”