Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

We have an interesting situation. Let us be very clear: if Senator Wong wants to believe some sort of blown-up version of the evidence Professor Triggs gave to the Senate committee the other day, she would then, by implication, have to reject completely the evidence of the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department. So, by allegedly defending the President of the Human Rights Commission, she is besmirching the reputation and the evidence of the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department. We can stand in this place and besmirch his character, allegedly, but, if anybody questions that which the Human Rights Commission has engaged in in recent times, that is completely different, of course, from the Labor Party's two-pronged approach, which would be better described as the forked-tongue approach.

The Attorney-General is also condemned for refusing to fully account for his conduct when appearing before a committee of the Senate. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was there hour after hour after hour, answering questions that were put to him. The fact that the Labor Party could not make headway in view of the overwhelming evidence in support of the Attorney-General does not mean that he refused to fully answer. What it means is that the Australian Labor Party had nothing to put into their sails.

Then the Attorney is accused of undermining Australia's commitment to upholding human rights. Can I tell you: one of the fundamentals of human rights is to have a free media in this country. Which was the political party that tried to put a restraint on the media in this country? Senator Conroy is absent, so, just in case people needed reminding, it was none other than Senator Conroy. What did that build on? It was built on a former Labor government that tried to restrict political advertising during election campaigns—a Senator Nick Bolkus special, if you recall, Senator Macdonald. So this is a political party that restrains and seeks to restrict freedom of speech in this country and then, in the next breath, just discards that to say, 'Nothing's happening; we are the champions of human rights.'

Then we go to the last clause: that Senator Brandis is allegedly unfit to hold the office of Attorney-General. What a joke—a highly qualified barrister and QC, very capable and learned in the law. Senator Wong accuses the Attorney-General of a personal attack. What is the language that Senator Wong used? That he was a bully; that he was a coward; that he was a disgrace; that he was discredited—but not a personal attack to be seen here! If Senator Wong does a personal attack, it is high and mighty! It is undoubtedly absolutely overflowing in principle! But if there are some questions about the good professor's conduct and the way the Human Rights Commission has been operated then allegedly this is a matter of bullying and cowardly behaviour.

So let's just go through some of these issues. First of all, why the inquiry into children in detention? Let's just have a look at the facts. When the Howard government left office, how many children were in detention? Why is it that nobody on the Labor-Greens side would answer that question? Because they know the answer is zero. When the Labor-Green government got defeated in September 2013, how many children were in detention? Once again Labor and the Greens do not know the answer, but the coalition does: there were in fact 1,743 children in detention. Today, how many children are in detention? Once again the Labor Party and the Greens will not answer, because they do know the answer. We on this side do: 261 remaining, and the number is heading south by the day. What better human right could there be than to actually see no child going into detention and then the legacy caseload, courtesy of the failed Labor-Green policies, being removed from detention, which is exactly what we are doing? So, having seen the number of children in detention grow from zero up to about 2,000, the Human Rights Commission was never motivated to undertake a study of the consequences of detention on children.