Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Contrary to the contribution by Senator Brandis earlier, this censure motion is about the fact that Senator Brandis's behaviour needs to be scrutinised. Senator Brandis likes the word 'erroneous'. The only problem is that he does not often use it accurately. Let us look at the most pressing example of erroneous. Senator Lambie covered the point that if Senator Brandis is being respectful then please do not be so to me. Indeed, in recent estimates he indicated he thought he was complimenting me. When I challenged that point, half his department laughed. It is common knowledge to all of us here that Senator Brandis's approach is as was described in the opinion pieces this weekend, faux respectful. There is no genuineness in how he deals with these things and often there are a blatant mistruths. I will attempt, in the time I have, to go through some of them.

Let us deal with the first: 'I have only ever said nice things about Professor Triggs.' Well let's look at this one. When the Prime Minister was addressed with the critical point here, which is the call for a royal commission to examine the long-term impacts of detention on the physical and mental health of children, the Prime Minister rejected the calls. He said:

This is a blatantly partisan politicised exercise and their Human Rights Commission ought to be ashamed of itself.

That was Mr Abbott to 3AW. Later in question time he said:

It would be a lot easier to respect the Human Rights Commission if it did not engage in what are transparent stitch-ups.

Oh please compliment me some time. Mr Abbott questioned why the Human Rights Commission had not held an inquiry when Labor was in power when hundreds of people were drowning at sea and there were almost 2,000 children in detention. But the critical point here is Attorney-General George Brandis endorsed the comments:

I entirely agree with the Prime Minister's remarks.

So he entirely agrees with those remarks by the Prime Minister and he comes in here in this faux respectful manner and pretends to suggest that he has never been critical of Professor Triggs. It is outright rubbish, as indeed are a range of the contributions that have come from the Attorney-General and all the way up to the Prime Minister.

This government has completely ignored the clarifications that were provided by Professor Triggs to her evidence from November. It became very clear that senators from the government had not even read that clarification in our last hearing, let alone read the report itself, so let us address some of those issues. The Prime Minister in question time asserted falsely that Professor Triggs had met with two Labor ministers during the caretaker period. We know that is false. So the question I raise, the question I raised in interjections earlier in this debate, is: who is feeding up this tripe? Why is the Prime Minister accepting that advice? Why is the Attorney-General accepting that advice? Why are government senators ignoring what is in front of them, for this witch-hunt?

But let us look at other matters. The evidence by Professor Triggs that was before us on the last occasion highlighted the number of occasions when she had been critical about the detention of children. She handed up this report. How many pages is it? There are 10 pages citing examples of how many times, regardless of which government was in power, she had sought to prosecute this issue, which is her role.

And of course there is the myth going on here from the government side. The government has been able to remove children from detention, and we commend it for that, but the myth is that the report is about the number of children in detention. That report is about the growing lengths of time that children have been detained. That is what the report is about, and that is what we urgently need to address. Senator Brandis should listen to Tim Wilson, of all people. He told us in the press that he had engaged in collecting some of the evidence for the report, and he reminded us all that it is about the growing length of time that children were being detained under our watch.

But let us look at another area of erroneous reporting: the story of the supposedly armed guards. If anyone has a look at the evidence, they will understand that it is very clear. There was evidence before the Human Rights Commission to that effect. The Human Rights Commission does what it ordinarily does and tests that evidence by giving the relevant department an opportunity to respond to a draft. Indeed, when the department challenged those assertions that were evidence before the commission, the commission rectified its report. It amended the report. So to come in here and suggest that the Human Rights Commission has it way wrong because it is reporting about armed guards is just rubbish—outright rubbish.

But let us look at some of the other things that this debate has—I would argue—deliberately misviewed. One of those is the nature of Professor Triggs's evidence last week. It is suggested that she was asking for an offer. That is rubbish. If you have a look at the nature of her description of why she contacted Mr Moraitis in January, this is what it is. This is from the Hansard at page 40:

And of course to ask the question why the department and the Attorney were not speaking up publicly to refute the inaccurate reports that were in that paper. I am absolutely certain that I was not—

'I was not'—

at any stage asking questions about me at any personal level or about a lack of confidence. That had never been suggested to me, ever. At that stage I was concerned about two things. One, the unremitting level of the criticism in the newspapers, which was not being responded to at all by either the department or the Attorney.

She was not asking for a job. She was asking for the government of the day and the relevant department to respond to what was occurring in this public witch-hunt.

The Attorney claims that there were not personal attacks. I invite him to read Piers Akerman and respond to that personal attack about Professor Triggs's disabled child. It was one of the worst pieces of gutter reporting I have ever read. And he suggests there were no personal attacks. Well, with respect, the Attorney is blind—outright blind.

Going then to the other erroneous aspects of Senator Brandis's contribution, I think it is important at this point to put on the record, as I have worked opposite to Senator Brandis for many years now and in many different capacities, that he has a pattern of behaviour. That pattern of behaviour is, firstly, to deliberately perpetrate misinformation. He has done it consistently, time and time again—whether you go back to the 'children overboard' affair and how circumstances were represented then or, case by case, afterwards. If I have time in a future opportunity, I will probably outline some of those. But he also has a history—again, a pattern of behaviour—of very poor judgement. Again it goes back quite some time. The one I remember was when, as Chair of the Privileges Committee, he pre-empted the consideration of the Godwin Grech matter. He was out there in the public world reflecting on Godwin Grech before we had even commenced addressing the matter. That is not the way the Chair of the Privileges Committee conducts themselves. But then, we are used to this pattern of behaviour, leading up to the way the Attorney has now conducted himself in this matter.

As Senator Wong said at the outset, Labor does not take censure motions lightly. But, with respect to Senator Brandis, there is, as I have said, a pattern of behaviour that has grown into this most outrageous incident. It is a circumstance in which it did not even occur to him or the government of today that offering—and I will be generous here—what has been perceived to be an inducement was inappropriate. This did not occur to him. He bogs himself down in a debate over whether the Australian Human Rights Commission is independent or quasi-independent. With respect, that is not the point. The point is he has behaved inappropriately and part of that inappropriate behaviour has been deliberately perpetuating misinformation. The Prime Minister did it in the House. The Prime Minister referred to two Labor ministers during the caretaker period. We know that that is patently false.

Since then we have had the government attempt to hide behind the suggestion that Professor Triggs was really asking for it. She was really after that role. It was really her asking for it. Good heavens! How outrageous! Indeed, it went so far, quite contrary to the evidence, last week with Julie Bishop suggesting that she had indeed initiated the interest in the role. There is nothing in any of the evidence—not even in Mr Moraitis's evidence—that gives that one ounce of support. There is nothing to support that at all.

I could spend a bit of time looking at what Mr Moraitis did say, because, apart from the bald assertions of Senator Brandis—actually, before I go to that, I should challenge Senator Brandis's claim that nobody asked him for his contribution. That is rubbish. He was asked by the chair, before we had the morning tea break, to put forward his views on this issue and, indeed, if I recall correctly, he spent a good 20 minutes doing so. Ahead of that, though, after Professor Triggs's opening statement, he again made a contribution, talking about the number of children who were in detention. I do not know if this was some bizarre attempt to say, 'Because I've got figures that are valid here today and they're different to the figures that were produced in this report back in November, I can dispute her on that.' We all know that comparing apples with oranges does not make a good argument, Senator Brandis. We all know that. We did not waste time asserting that in those hearings. Seriously!

Now that I come to Mr Moraitis, let me say that he was a most unsatisfactory witness. I invite anyone to simply observe the body language. The body language alone tells a story. I hope Mr Moraitis regrets that he did not tell the Attorney to go and do his own dirty work. I hope Mr Moraitis regrets that he did not do more earlier to deal with this scurrilous witch-hunt on the Human Rights Commission. I hope he does regret those things. But I look forward to the clarification he will provide us of his evidence. As I said, the government ignored the clarification that Professor Triggs gave to her November evidence, but I very much am looking forward to Mr Moraitis's clarification of his. We do not know if it was his notebook or a couple of pages of notes. We do not know when he annotated them. We do not know exactly what he said to Professor Triggs, but, on any score observing that evidence, the evidence from Professor Triggs was clear. It was consistent and it was presented in what could be assessed as a credible manner. If you look at the evidence provided by Mr Moraitis, it is a different story. His story on the inducement just does not pass the pub test. Mr Moraitis admits that Senator Brandis sent him to pressure Professor Triggs by advising that the government had lost confidence in her. He admits that he offered her a specific role which was specifically mentioned: a senior legal role that could be available to her as an alternative to her position with the Human Rights Commission. Mr Moraitis agrees that Professor Triggs's resignation from the Human Rights Commission and the offer of a senior legal role were linked in the sense that 'one would follow from another'. Mr Moraitis expects us to believe that this was not intended to act as an inducement. Please!

Professor Triggs offers a much more solid and much more convincing account of the conversation with Mr Moraitis. Professor Triggs says that her resignation and the new job were definitely linked. She said that there was no doubt in her mind that the two were connected. That is not the only hole in Mr Moraitis's story. He is even trying to claim that the word 'resignation' was not mentioned at their meeting. He says he could not recall whether Professor Triggs's resignation was discussed. 'I do not recall,' Mr Moraitis said repeatedly during last week's estimates hearing. 'I do not recall.' Once again, Professor Triggs's evidence on this point is crystal clear. She says that she is 'absolutely certain' that she was told Senator Brandis wanted her 'resignation'. 'The word "resignation" was absolutely crystal clear to me,' she said. Mr Moraitis must think that avoiding the word 'resignation' will buy him a get-out-of-jail-free card, but he is mistaken. His simply implausible evidence on this point only serves to undermine his credibility, and I suggest he stop serving the Attorney in this way and reflect on his broader credibility that the Attorney referred to earlier today.

It is no wonder that the Prime Minister has faced questions about whether Mr Moraitis's evidence at Senate estimates was truthful and it is no wonder that Mr Moraitis could not bring himself to sit up at the table or speak clearly into the microphone during those hearings. Mr Moraitis did not say much, but his body language told you everything you needed to know. I look forward to the opportunity to question him further because, as Senator Brandis indicated, we did not get anywhere near the full story in those hearings. We did not have an opportunity to bring out the full facts of this tawdry episode.

What we did hear once again was Senator Brandis and his colleagues deliberately perpetuating misinformation. What is even more bizarre was we saw it travel—so it could not just be Senator Brandis in his statement putting misinformation to our committee; it travelled right up to the Prime Minister during question time. It is seriously bizarre that this government still believes it can succeed by perpetuating misinformation that is right before your nose. The press saw it and highlighted it over the weekend. They knew the evidence that was before us. These myths that this government attempts to operate cannot and will not shield it from this exercise of completely inappropriate behaviour by the Attorney following a consistent pattern of perpetuating misinformation. He should know better and about exercising poor judgement— (Time expired)