Gillian Triggs offers help to stop bogus race cases

Gillian Triggs is willing to work with Coalition MPs on a bill allowing her to more easily end ‘frivolous’ complaints.

Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane and Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs at Parliament House yesterday.

Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs is willing to work with Coalition MPs on a bill allowing her to more easily terminate “frivolous” complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act.

Government MPs have criticised the commission’s long complaints handling process, which requires all claims to be investigated before they can be thrown out as trivial, vexatious, misconceived or lacking in substance.

Professor Triggs yesterday ­acknowledged concerns about ­delays in processing complaints and said she would be “very happy” to consult on new legislation that might help her “nip in the bud” futile complaints.

“We appear to be dealing with matters that some people would say should not be before the commission and that should be something that should be appropriately discussed in an informed and courteous way and I think it is at least open to a suggestion for ­reform,” Professor Triggs told the Senate legal and constitutional ­affairs committee in Canberra.

Professor Triggs said she had lobbied Labor and Coalition governments to amend her agency’s legislation but had been unsuccessful.

She refused to comment on The Australian cartoonist Bill Leak’s depiction of an apathetic Aboriginal father, which has triggered a complaint under the act despite clear legal exemptions for artistic expression, fair comment and the public interest.

Section 18C of the law prohibits speech that is “reasonably likely, in all the circumstances” to offend or insult on racial grounds.

Attorney-General George Brandis welcomed Professor Triggs’s offer to work with ­Coalition MPs but predicted left-wing parties would criticise any such move as an attack on human rights.

“Unfortunately the Human Rights Commission Act, like a number of other issues of public policy, has become one of those no-go zones of Australian public discussion of which nothing may be said without bringing down a hullabaloo of misrepresentation and hysterical objection,” Senator Brandis said.

Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane ­denied prejudging the Leak case in August by urging anyone offended by the cartoon to lodge a complaint under section 18C.

“There’s no prejudgement that I make. I have a role as defined by the Racial Discrimination Act to promote public understanding and acceptance of the Act and compliance with the Act,” Dr Soutphommasane told the committee, noting he had no role in handling complaints to the commission.

Dr Soutphommasane said he was one of many prominent Australians who rebuked Leak’s ­cartoon, including Indigenous ­Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion.

“Cartoons will be subject to all matter of public debate. It’s a healthy part of our democracy that we have that debate,” he said, denying claims section 18C was “shutting down” public debate.

Professor Triggs said the commission did not adjudicate claims under section 18C but was responsible for conciliating complaints in a no-cost environment. She said 70 per cent of complaints were ­successfully conciliated.