As the Federal Government persists with the dialogue that yesterday’s extraordinarily damning report from the Human Rights Commission into the treatment of child asylum seekers in mandatory detention was nothing but a partisan stitch-up, today the revelations keep rolling in that make that position look all the more sketchy.
Fairfax Media is reporting that two weeks prior to the tabling of the report – entitled the Forgotten Children report – the Abbott Government attempted to persuade Gillian Triggs, the President of the commission, to resign from her position.
The report claims that prior to the report being released, an oral request for Professor Triggs to resign was conveyed to her from the office of Attorney-General George Brandis. Triggs rejected the request as an attack on both herself, and the independence and integrity of the committee.
Professor Triggs was installed as President of the Commission in 2012 on a fixed five-year term – this is done to protect the President from political interference. She can be sacked in instances of bankruptcy or serious misconduct. It is understood no reason was given for the request for her to resign, only that “some other opportunity” would be available to her if she did.
The Forgotten Children report found that in some instances the Federal Government had knowingly breached children’s human rights by subjecting them to indefinite mandatory detention without hope of release – in some cases, children’s right to education had been withheld for periods up to a year. It recommended a Royal Commission into the detention centres and the immediate release of all children currently being held.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott in response brushed the report off as little more than a partisan attack on the Government, stating that the Human Rights Commission “should be ashamed” of themselves, that they should instead send a note of congratulations to former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison for stopping the boats, and that he feels no guilt whatsoever over the contents of the report, which detail systemic abuse and significant physical and psychological consequences.
Professor Triggs declined to confirm the request to resign, but expressed dismay over the Government’s attack on the report’s impartiality, stating that at numerous times during the previous Labor government the commission had tabled reports to them on the matter, and had gone so far as to intervene in High Court proceedings to vehemently oppose the “Malaysia solution.”
“To suggest that, all of a sudden, the commission concentrated on the issue because there was a new government is a serious misrepresentation of the facts. This is a document of record, but it’s a document of a continuing position in relation to these children.“
Triggs simultaneously welcomed the fact that under the Abbott Government the number of children in detention had fallen quite significantly, she pointed out the over 300 remain in indefinite detention, and rejected Government suggestions that it was a well-timed attack on the Abbott regime, given that the majority of time covered in the report fell under a Labor Government timeframe.
Photo: Bradley Kanaris via Getty Images.
via SMH.
