Andrew Bolt: Why does Gillian Triggs still have a job?

SURELY the smearing of a group of students as possible racists was the final straw for Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs? So why is she still in the job, asks Andrew Bolt.

Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs at Parliament House last month. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

• BOLT: Sure, attack triggs. but PM, what about your law?

WHY IS Gillian Triggs still president of the Human Rights Commission? Smearing some students as possible racists must be the last straw.

What more proof is needed that Triggs, with powers close to a judge’s, cannot be trusted to tell the truth?

Andrew Bolt wants to know why Triggs still has a job.

What more proof that the Racial Discrimination Act she administers is an invitation to defame the innocent and must be reformed?

Triggs’ latest scandal involves seven Queensland University of Technology students.

Three years ago one of the students, Alex Wood, sat down at a computer at his university. Staffer Cindy Prior, who has Aboriginal ancestry, asked him to leave, saying the computer was for Aboriginal students only.

Wood then complained on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous com­puter room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation?” Six students made similar comments, and Prior complained to Triggs’ commission that she’d been offended and insulted on the grounds of her race, which is unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act. Three of the students were so scared of the commission’s investigation that they gave Prior $5000 each in a confidential deal. Three others refused, and were sued for $250,000.

A Federal Court judge last week ­finally ended this farce, saying two of the students had not made unlawful statements at all, and the third had apparently not made the comment Prior attributed to him.

‘Alex Wood had been accused of racism for fighting racism.’

Importantly, the judge accepted that Wood, for instance, posted his comment to protest “racial segregation … on the campus of my university”. In other words, Wood had been accused of racism for fighting racism.

But Triggs, in defending her commission’s role in this persecution, still slimed the students, saying Prior’s complaint “had a level of substance” and raised “a certain measure of concern” because the students’ language was “worrying and troubling”. So the commission had to investigate.

Yes, Triggs still implied that the innocent students were racists, days after the Federal Court had cleared them. Tony Morris QC, representing some of the students, has demanded Triggs apologise and pay damages.

He’s also outraged by Triggs’ claim that her commission “tried for 13 or 14 months” to conciliate the complaint before Prior took it to court.

In fact, it did not even inform the students of the complaint against them for a year, until days before it told them to attend a conciliation conference.

Time to resign, Ms Triggs.