Coalition demands Shorten pursue Gillian Triggs for misleading parliament

Coalition MPs are demanding Labor pursue the Human Rights Commission boss for misleading parliament over quotes.

 

Coalition MPs are demanding Bill Shorten pursue Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs for misleading parliament after she backed down from evidence to a Senate committee in which she blamed journalists for manufacturing quotes and quoting her out of context.

Professor Triggs was forced to issue a clarifying statement to the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee to qualify her claims to the committee on Tuesday that, in an April 23 interview she gave to The Saturday Paper, she was quoted inaccurately and taken out of context — even suggesting that one quote was “put in by a sub-editor”.

But, after learning the newspaper had an audio recording of the interview, Professor Triggs — as reported in The Australian today — has offered to “clarify” her evidence to the committee and accepted that the “article was an accurate excerpt from a longer interview”.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz has seized on Professor Triggs’ backdown to try to blunt the Labor attack on Attorney-General George Brandis.

The Labor Opposition has accused Senator Brandis of misleading parliament over the nature of his consultations with Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson about a controversial new direction on how he is to provide advice.

“The Labor Party, if they are to be consistent, would need to be just as active in pursuing Ms Triggs as they have been in what his simply a storm in a teacup between the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General,” Seantor Abetz told The Australian.

“And here with Ms Triggs we’ve actually got an audio tape. And unless that can be disputed by Ms Triggs I think she’s got more than a bit of explaining to do.”

Senator Abetz said that Professor Triggs’ credibility was at stake and encouraged the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee to give consideration to “calling the journalist concerned and Ms Triggs to see where the truth lies”.

“This is potentially a very serious privileges matter because giving misleading or false evidence to the Senate is a matter that strikes at the very heart of our democratic system of government,” Senator Abetz told The Australian.

Liberal senator for South Australia Cory Bernardi argued that Professor Triggs should consider stepping down.

“This is just another example of why people have, many people, have serious doubts about Ms Triggs and the position that she holds,” Senator Bernardi told The Australian.

“Her track record certainly doesn’t inspire confidence and if you can’t have confidence in someone holding such a position one has to ask whether they should be considering their position.”  

And Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told 2GB radio Professor Triggs needed to address “very serious allegations” that she had misled the Senate committee.

“They are obviously issues that she would need to address very quickly,” Mr Dutton said. “They are very serious allegations…. It is an office with great prestige in the commonwealth. She would have to clear this up very quickly as it goes to her character.”