Coalition MPs have rounded on Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs over allegations she misled a Senate committee when she denied making comments critical of politicians in an interview.
Triggs has issued a statement admitting the article was accurate and offering to clarify her evidence after the Saturday Paper editor Erik Jensen revealed a recording of the interview contradicted her account.
On Tuesday Triggs was grilled in a Senate estimates committee about an interview she gave that paper in April in which she reportedly said politicians were “usually seriously ill-informed” and had “lost any sense of the rule of law”.
Triggs told the committee her comments were “taken out of context” and some quotes were inaccurate. She suggested one quote that she could have “destroyed” the committee grilling her about the commission’s Forgotten Children report was “put in by a subeditor” .
Jensen told the Australian after reviewing the tape of the interview that the quotes were accurate and not taken out of context.
In a statement Triggs said: “Upon further reflection I accept that the article was an accurate excerpt from a longer interview.
“I had no intention of questioning the Saturday Paper’s journalistic integrity. I have today written to the committee to clarify my statement,” she said. “I answered questions regarding the article in good faith and based on my best recollection.”
On Thursday Coalition MPs including immigration minister, Peter Dutton, Eric Abetz, Cory Bernardi, Ian MacDonald and Michael Sukkar criticised Triggs.
MacDonald, who chairs the committee, said it was “disturbing that senior officers would resort to that sort of misinformation to a Senate committee”.
Dutton told 2GB Radio that Triggs needed to address “very serious allegations” that she had misled the Senate committee.
“She would have to clear this up very quickly as it goes to her character,” he said.
Triggs and the Abbott-Turnbull government have had a fraught relationship since she released the commission’s Forgotten Children report, critical of treatment of children in detention.
In February 2015 Triggs told a committee that grilled her about the report that she was asked to resign by a government official on behalf of the attorney general, George Brandis.
After her impartiality was questioned, she hit back at Coalition critics including MacDonald, saying they did not understand the Human Rights Commission and her statutory duties.
Last week, MacDonald questioned Triggs’ independence describing her as “so-called independent statutory offices” in a speech to the Senate.
“Deliberately or innocently, both the human rights commissioner and the solicitor general have allowed themselves to be involved in the political games, and by doing that they have diminished the positions they hold and themselves,” he said.
