Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. It was pursued by the bovver boys of the Bjelke-Petersen era, out there thinking they have gone back 30 to 40 years; they can treat people with absolute contempt; and they can do whatever they like. That is the position that was set about by Senator Brandis in his attack on the President of the Human Rights Commission.

Senator Brandis prances around the place preening himself continuously. Well, there is not too much prancing and preening going on at the moment, as the Federal Police will be lining up to ask him detailed questions on why oh why he sent his secretary off to get a commitment from the President of the Human Rights Commission to give up her position in return for another position somewhere else, simply because Senator Brandis does not like the President of the Human Rights Commission and does not like the Human Rights Commission as a body. And he is not on his own there. It is the whole conservative coalition. They do not like the Human Rights Commission. They do not like the president of that commission. This was too smart by half by Senator Brandis, and there are further questions that will need to be asked. It is untenable for a minister to send his secretary to offer up an alternative job to the President of the Human Rights Commission because that minister and the coalition do not like the individual that is in the position and do not like the commission itself.

When you saw what has gone on and you saw the estimates hearing, you must have been appalled. Everyone was appalled, looking at what was going on there. This was from Senator Brandis, who was a so-called moderate in the coalition in the past. This is where the moderates are in the coalition now: prepared to attack the female president of the commission because they do not like her, and they sent out the bovver boys to attack her mercilessly. This is not what democracy is about, and Senator Brandis has lots of questions to answer. He has failed to answer them. There is no doubt that the censure was an appropriate censure, and this minister is not fit— (Time expired)