Thuggish attacks on the Human Rights Commission should not be tolerated
Good government, Tony Abbott told us, started last Monday. It was a short-lived experiment. By Thursday, we were subjected to the undignified spectacle of the prime minister and his senior colleagues throwing punches over the release by the Human Rights Commission of a report on children in immigration detention.
Good government, Tony Abbott told us, started last Monday. It was a short-lived experiment. By Thursday, we were subjected to the undignified spectacle of the prime minister and his senior colleagues throwing punches over the release by the Human Rights Commission of a report on children in immigration detention.
Rather than grapple with the substance of that report or its recommendations, Abbott and his ministers immediately took to the airwaves to launch an attack on the commission itself.
Appallingly, George Brandis, the attorney-general, endorsed his colleagues cynical attacks on the commission, an independent statutory agency within his own portfolio. It has since been reported that Brandis offered the president of the commission, Gillian Triggs, an inducement to resign.
I want to make a broader point.This is about more than the debate about asylum seeker policy. Good governments work hard to protect the rights of children. But more fundamentally, good governments respect the place of independent institutions in upholding human rights in this country.Good governments respect the importance of free and open debate about government policy.
The government's broadside on the Human Rights Commission, a body within my shadow portfolio, shows us just how little respect this government has for the role of independent institutions in a robust democracy, and for our human rights framework.
The Human Rights Commission has given opinions on the policies of all governments. It rises above the partisan fray and this should be respected by the government of the day.
Unfortunately, the current government and its acolytes in some segments of the media want to drag the commission into a party political debate.The Australian has printed implausible opinions from supposed legal experts claiming that the commission should not uphold international treaties, as opposed to domestic law. It is in fact obliged by its founding statute to uphold human rights treaties, a number of which are actually annexed to that statute.
Government ministers have not even bothered to find some tenuous figleaf of principle to cover their political attack. They have resorted directly to personal smears on the commissions leadership, questioning the integrity of respected public office-holders who dare criticise government policy. This is thuggish behaviour, and we should not tolerate it.
It is incredible that the Liberal party, who under Malcolm Fraser established the first incarnation of an independent human rights commission, has descended to this new nadir. Truly that party has lost its soul. What sort of liberals howl with rage at criticism from an independent body? What sort of conservatives sneer with contempt at the very idea that government ought to respect basic rights and freedoms?
The people of Queensland, the state Brandis represents, recently made clear how they felt about the thin-skinned, bullyboy style of the Newman government. Newman's political soulmates in Canberra should be on notice. Australia wants governments with the ability to weather criticism with dignity, that have the integrity not to attack those institutions we have put deliberately beyond their control. Abbott and his ministers should be ashamed of themselves.
First published in Guardian Australia on 17 February 2015.
