Truth overboard at Gillian Triggs’ inquiry on children in detention
Well done to Scott Morrison he ripper her and made her look stupid and a liar and this inquiry a political witch hunt
Well done to Immigration Department secretary Martin Bowles as well as he put her in her place after the blatant LIES she told...
Worth watching the video and Gillian Triggs squirm when she is exposed as a liar
THE Human Rights Commission president must resign after turning her inquiry on children in detention into a political witch-hunt last week.
Gillian Triggs’ behaviour was unforgivable for someone with semi-judicial powers, able to force witnesses to appear under threat of jail.
We cannot have the head of an inquiry showing such bias, heckling witnesses and making false and emotive claims from the bench to make the Christmas Island detention centre seem a hellhole.
Nor can we have an inquiry head giving media interviews attacking witnesses and summing up the issues before hearing all the evidence.
We also cannot have an inquiry head refusing to correct explosive claims about suicide attempts in detention when they’ve been debunked.
It is now impossible to have confidence in Triggs’ impartiality.
In fact, it’s hard not to suspect her inquiry is designed to reach a prejudged conclusion — to damn the Abbott Government’s successful border laws.
The very fact that Triggs, a law academic, called this taxpayer-funded inquiry is highly suspect.
The last time her commission looked into this issue was 2004 — which, what a surprise, was when the Howard government was stopping the boats, too.
No further inquiry was held in the seven years of Labor’s Rudd and Gillard governments, during which the border laws were weakened, luring more than 1200 men, women and children to their deaths and filling detention centres to bursting.
No, Triggs, appointed by Labor in 2012, waited until another Liberal government was back in power, stopping the boats and emptying the detention centres.
Sev Ozdowski, the former human rights commissioner responsible for the 2004 inquiry, calls this timing “very odd”.
“When the boats were arriving in large numbers and Labor was at its peak of cruelty towards the boat arrivals, (the commission) almost did not see the problem.”
But Triggs is now on the case, seemingly filled with a righteous anger at the Abbott Government, even though the boats have now stopped and the number of children in detention more than halved.
Last month, for instance, she claimed “we’ve had reports that have been confirmed during the day that 10 women have attempted suicide” on Christmas Island.
False. There has been only one case of self-harm by a woman that could with any credibility be described as “attempted suicide”. And, no, Madam President, sipping some shampoo does not qualify.
Triggs also claimed last month she’d visited the detained children on Christmas Island and “almost all of them, including the adults, were coughing, were sick, were depressed, unable to communicate (and) weak”, which made her want to ask: “What’s going on? Why is this child not being treated?”
False again. Sick children are indeed being treated and the Government hotly disputes Triggs’ claim that almost every detained child on Christmas Island is sick.
Told this, Triggs — with her inquiry still to hear from Immigration Minister Scott Morrison — gave another media interview rebuking Morrison as needing “to be better advised”, and insisting “all children should be removed from the detention centres and placed in the community”.
Er, isn’t that the very thing the inquiry is meant to determine at the end of the hearings, and not near the start? Should an inquiry head really be attacking witnesses even before they’ve given their evidence?
But if all that was bad, last week was a disgrace.
Morrison appeared before her inquiry and Triggs flew for his throat: “How can you justify detaining children in these conditions for more than a year when there is no evidence that this is the policy that is stopping the boats but rather Operation Sovereign Borders, however you define it, with three-star generals or civilian authorities, whatever name you put to it, the reality is that physical force and power have stopped these boats?”
Not biased? Triggs?
On it went.
Triggs insisted “the people on Christmas Island are being detained in a prison effectively” because on her three visits she had noticed “you cannot get into any of the sections without going through armed guards”.
That infuriated the Immigration Department secretary Martin Bowles, who protested at Triggs’ “emotive statements”.
“It is not fair to characterise the detention system as a jail,” he said, and Triggs should correct a falsehood.
“We do not have armed guards, President. I would like you to acknowledge that.”
Triggs would not, despite being repeatedly challenged on her “facts”.
But if the head of an inquiry can see armed guards where there are none, and a prison where there are only pool fences, what else is she imagining about what she’s supposed to impartially judge?
No, Triggs must resign. She is meant to confront injustice, not commit it.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/truth-overboard-at-gillian-triggs-inquiry-on-children-in-de...
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