Gillian Triggs’ silence ‘a gross insult’, says QUT students’ lawyer

Gillian Triggs was contemptuous of politicians with her refusal to answer questions into the QUT case, lawyer says.

Professor Gillian Triggs, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Picture Kym Smith

Gillian Triggs was contemptuous of politicians and delivered a “gross insult” to Australian judges with her refusal to answer the questions of senators inquiring into the 18C case against QUT students, according to their lawyer.

Tony Morris QC told senator Ian Macdonald, chair of the legal and constitutional ­affairs committee, there was no legal basis for Professor Triggs to state she could not speak about the case as it was “before the Federal Court”.

Professor Triggs also told senators on Monday she “cannot discuss the QUT case because of the absolute requirement of confidentiality”. However, she had talked about several of its features on the ABC in interviews with Radio National Breakfast and 7.30 in early November.

Mr Morris, who represented students Calum Thwaites and Jackson Powell after the 18C complaint escalated from the Human Rights Commission to the Federal Circuit Court, said if someone without legal training had relied on Professor Triggs’s explanation it could be put down to a genuine misconception. “But when a lawyer of the standing of Professor Triggs mouths such tendentious drivel … it has to be called out for the diversionary tactic which it plainly is,’’ he said in a letter to Senator Macdonald.

Mr Morris said there was never any risk of Professor Triggs prejudicing future proceedings of the Federal Court. Judge John Dowsett will on Friday consider an ­application by the lawyers for an indigenous complainant, Cindy Prior, to seek leave to appeal last month’s dismissal of her case for $250,000 in compensation from the Queensland University of Technology students. There is currently no appeal.

Professor Triggs has criticised the publicity generated in the QUT case, saying there had been a “high level of misinformation”. She has also singled out lawyers for the students for providing documents about the handling of the case by the Human Rights Commission, which did not tell the ­students in a 14-month “investigation” period that they were ­accused of racial hatred for Facebook posts.

But Mr Morris, in a scathing critique of the Senate testimony by Professor Triggs on Monday, accused her of citing the Federal Court appeal possibility in “a calculated subterfuge to avoid answering embarrassing questions”.

He said the only potential prejudice from answering questions was to her reputation, adding there was no certainty an appeal would be permitted.

“How could it seriously be suggested that the ­decision of such a judge could be ‘prejudiced’ by any testimony by Professor Triggs ­before your committee,’’ Mr Morris said in the letter to Senator Macdonald. “Even to hint at such a possibility is a gross insult to the Australian judiciary.”

Mr Morris said that — contrary to assertions by Professor Triggs that the commission did its job properly in the QUT case — documentary proof showed “there was no genuine attempt to inquire into the Prior complaint and only a solemn farce of a pretended attempt to conciliate”.

“It is clear from the documents. It therefore doesn’t really matter what Professor Triggs tells your committee or indeed what she says in any other forum. If she speaks only the truth it will just ­reflect what can be proved from the documents.”