Gillian Triggs has accused the Australian government of being “ideologically opposed to human rights”, saying Australia’s human rights are “regressing on almost every front”.

Triggs has used the last week of her tenure as human rights commissioner to say human rights in Australia were going backwards for almost all relevant groups. “Whether it’s women, Indigenous, homeless and most of course asylum seekers and refugees,” she told ABC Radio National on Wednesday morning.

Triggs said the Coalition government held some responsibility for the regression. “I think it’s partly because we have a government that is ideologically opposed to human rights,” she said.

“Mr Abbott, when he campaigned for government, one of those campaign platforms was the elimination of the Australian Human Rights Commission. So in that sense it was part of the platform and it’s been maintained pretty well ever since.”

Triggs also blamed the slipping of human rights in Australia on the lack of a legal protection of rights – a bill of rights – that would ensure governments could not act counter to human rights.

“Unlike almost every other comparable country Australia has no bill of rights against which government policies can be benchmarked,” Triggs said.

“As there is no bill of rights, the courts are very very hamstrung in standing up for human rights.”

She said the fear of terrorism was being exploited to centralise government power “giving ministers really unprecedented power without the supervision of the court.”

She said Australia had produced more counterterrorism legislation than North America and Europe, and since there was no bill of rights in Australia, those measures were not necessarily consistent with fundamental human rights.

Her time in the role was marked by fierce clashes with the Coalition government. She dismissed claims that she acted in a partisan way, instead blaming the government for framing issues that way.

“Firstly I categorically reject any suggestion that we acted in a political way,” she said.

“There is no doubt at all however that rather than take on the substantive factual and legal points that we were making the government decided it was better to attack us on political grounds,” she said.

“I do of course accept that that was the perception created not only by government members but by a major newspaper in Australia.”

She said she had no regrets and was very proud of what the Human Rights Commission achieved under her leadership, with a “miniscule” budget of just $14m.



“I believe we have done a terrific job. We have stuck to the facts. We know the facts are right. We know the law is right. We are very proud that. I think there are no regrets and I very much hope that in the future the commission can continue to be fearless in standing up for the rights of Australians.”