The Turnbull government has drawn up a shortlist of candidates for the next sex discrimination commissioner but is at least a month away from a decision, despite claims in October that an announcement was imminent.

Labor said it was “a disgrace for women everywhere” that the government was delaying appointing a replacement for Elizabeth Broderick, the long-serving commissioner whose term expired four months ago.

It is understood candidates have been shortlisted and interviews are due to be conducted soon, with cabinet likely to sign off on the appointment in mid-February.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general, George Brandis, said the recruitment process was “well under way”.

“An announcement will be made shortly,” the spokeswoman said on Wednesday. “Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs is currently acting in the role.”

The opposition argued the government should have been well-prepared to fill the expected vacancy, given it extended Broderick’s term by a year in 2014.

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said it was disgraceful that “women suffering discrimination – in the workplace or elsewhere – have had no advocate”.

“It’s been more than four months now – and I’m floored that the government doesn’t seem to care there Australia has no sex discrimination commissioner,” he said.



Dreyfus sought to link the issue to the scandal surrounding Jamie Briggs’s resignation from the ministry over “inappropriate” conduct towards a female public servant in Hong Kong in November and the subsequent leaking of a photo of the complainant.

“It’s all very well to talk about tackling discrimination against women and stronger ministerial standards [but] this farce shows Malcolm Turnbull is failing on both those fronts,” Dreyfus said.

Brandis’s office told Fairfax Media more than three months ago that an announcement about the next commissioner would be made “shortly”. The attorney general used a similar formulation in a Senate estimates hearing on 20 October, before telling the Senate on 12 November that “an announcement will be made very soon”.

The sex discrimination commissioner oversees the Human Rights Commission’s efforts to overcome gender-based discrimination, including sexual harassment.

Broderick focused on five areas: balancing paid work and care; women’s economic security; promoting women in leadership; preventing violence against women and sexual harassment; and strengthening gender equality laws and agencies.

In a farewell interview with Guardian Australia in September, Broderick offered advice to her successor: “Do what you can, when you can ... Don’t respond to the barbs. Have a thick skin.”

Broderick has continued to be active , particularly in a week where a journalist was called a “mad fucking witch” by the immigration minister and a sports reporter was asked out for a drink and told “don’t blush, baby” during an interview with cricketer Chris Gayle.