Australia’s human rights chief Prof Gillian Triggs is resisting fresh pressure from the Abbott government to resign, describing “highly personal” criticism from ministers as a distraction from the important work of her commission.
The president of the Australian Human Rights Commission has faced strong criticism from the prime minister Tony Abbott and several frontbenchers, including the immigration minister Peter Dutton who accused her of being a political advocate and urged her to contemplate her position.
Triggs said on Friday it was “not easy” when such comments were made, but added that she was a statutory office holder and the independence of her work was protected in legislation. She vowed to press ahead with carrying out the commission’s work.
“I haven’t considered resigning,” she told the ABC’s Radio National.
Triggs said succumbing “to these highly personal responses to the work of the commission” could undermine the commission’s independence and would be “the very reverse of what I ought to be doing”.
“It is not about me,” she said. “It’s about the work.”
Posing an alternative scenario, Triggs said that if she were to receive warm and congratulatory words from the government of the day on a constant basis, people would be justified to ask questions about the commission’s work.
Triggs said the commission made comments on some issues, which the government did not want to hear, but she urged Australians to read the full reports and focus on the issues.
Earlier this year, the government criticised Triggs over a report on children in immigration detention, accusing her of delaying the inquiry until after Labor was voted out of office in 2013. The latest criticism was triggered by comments Triggs made at an event last week about the regional “consequences” of turning back boats.
Triggs suggested that such policies hampered engagement with Indonesia on issues Australia cared about, such as the death penalty, which the Australian newspaper and Dutton interpreted as linking asylum seeker policies to the execution of two Australians in April.
Triggs reiterated her argument on Friday that she had been talking about negotiations towards abolishing the death penalty, not specific cases. She said it was disappointing that ministers had leapt upon the original newspaper headline to criticise her without establishing the full context.
Brian Burdekin, who served as human rights commissioner from 1986 to 1994, said this week that the government appeared to be running an orchestrated campaign to “destabilise or even destroy” the commission.
