A regretful Gillian Triggs says she was "very frustrated" when she slammed Australian politicians as ignorant and uneducated and claimed she could have "destroyed them" in an infamous newspaper interview.

The Australian Human Rights Commission boss was hauled back before Senate estimates on Monday to explain misleading evidence she gave at a similar hearing in October.

At the time, Professor Triggs said the disparaging remarks attributed to her by The Saturday Paper had been inaccurately reported, taken out of context and even doctored by a sub-editor.

She recanted the next day after the newspaper's editor Erik Jensen said a recording of the interview showed the quotes were entirely accurate. She subsequently wrote to the committee to correct her evidence.