Cabinet signs off on successful candidate but Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs left off selection panel

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

An announcement on who will fill the vacant role of sex discrimination commissioner will be made this week, the attorney general, George Brandis, has said, while comprehensively dismissing rumours Peta Credlin would be appointed.

The role has been vacant since September, when Elizabeth Broderick’s term expired.

Speculation had been mounting that Credlin, the former chief of staff for Tony Abbott, had her name put forward. Brandis shot that down.

“Ms Credlin was never a candidate; she never sought to be a candidate,” Brandis told Senate estimates on Tuesday, adding that she did not put her name forward, nor did anyone else put her name forward as a candidate.

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When asked if he had a discussion with anyone regarding Credlin being a candidate, Brandis replied flatly: “No.”

Cabinet signed off on the successful candidate on Monday after a lengthy selection process.

Four people were on the selection committee but the president of Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs – who would effectively be the new commissioner’s boss – was not included.

“I was consulted by the prime minister [Malcolm Turnbull] before Christmas about the process and he expressed to me that he was very keen to have a proper process for selection and asked whether this would cause any difficulties to the commission if it were to be delayed longer,” Triggs told estimates.

“I said that I was happy for the process to take longer in order for it to be an open, transparent and usual process. And it was left at that. I have not subsequently been consulted.

“The prime minister at that stage indicated that he would include me on the panel but he did so really as a matter of good faith because he hadn’t been advised by anybody else.

“It was obviously a matter for him in the long term whether he wanted to me to continue on the panel.”

Brandis conceded that the president was usually included in selection panel but dismissed the notion that Triggs had been deliberately excluded.

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“Excluded is your word,” he said to the Labor senator Catryna Bilyk. “Professor Triggs was not included.”

The panel of four included Broderick and the secretary of the attorney general’s department, Chris Moraitis.



Brandis said he had a person in mind to take on the sex discrimination commissioner role in September but that Turnbull’s ascension as prime minister changed that.

After approaching Turnbull about the candidate, Brandis was told that an “arm’s length process of selection” would take place rather than a direct appointment.

A list of 70 candidates was whittled down to seven people, who were interviewed before a report was compiled for the cabinet to make its final decision.

Labor and the Greens had criticised the government for not appointing a sex discrimination commissioner sooner, saying Brandis had known since taking office in 2013 that a vacancy would be imminent.

Brandis would not be drawn on exactly when the announcement of the new commissioner would be made, saying only that it would happen this week.