When the Australian Human Rights Commission released its report into children in detention, Tony Abbott attacked its president, Gillian Triggs. Here's how the transcript could have read instead, writes Jonathan Green.

The Prime Minister enters the Parliament House Blue Room. The set-up is simple: a plain wood podium and a single Australian flag.

Transcript.

Good morning and thanks for coming.

Today I want to welcome this report from the Human Rights Commission, The Forgotten Children, and I thank the Commission's president, Professor Gillian Triggs, for joining me here today. I'd like to make a few comments, there will be time for questions and then some closing comments from Professor Triggs.

There is much in this report that is sad and disturbing.

No one in this Government, no Australian, wants to see children in detention. That is why this Government has acted so decisively to do two things.

The first was to stop the boats, to stop the trade of the people smugglers.

There can be no worse abuse of children than to put them at risk of death by drowning on the high seas. That was the situation that faced hundreds of children during the term of the previous Rudd, Gillard, Rudd government, a term in which the flow of boats escalated out of control as we know. A term in which death at sea became a tragic, appalling commonplace.

The second point I want to make, is to look at the numbers now.

Thanks to its policy failure, its failure to secure the borders of this country, the number of children in detention at the time we came to government in 2013 was nearly 1500. 1500 children in detention under Labor. That number is now, under my Government, that number is now 126. Just 126.

Now let me say this, that 126 is 126 too many, and it is right of the Human Rights Commission, absolutely right Professor, it is right of the Human Rights Commission to highlight this situation, to draw out in such graphic terms the problems being faced by these children.

But let me be clear here, this is a very difficult situation.

These children are in detention as a direct result of attempts made to enter this country illegally. Now our position on this is clear, that people attempting to do that will be placed in mandatory detention.

This Government takes the view that as far as is possible, children should not be placed in that position. That is what's right.

We attempt as best we can to resolve the issues around the detention of unaccompanied children and place them as quickly as we can in the community. This has been the clear intention of policy. In situations where children are under the care of parents or relatives there is the complicating factor of the necessary security clearances around those parents or guardians.

Now it may be undesirable to have a child in detention ... undoubtedly that is true ... but it may also be undesirable to part that child from parents over whom we have legitimate security concerns.

They are still the child's parents. We have learnt the many lessons of history when it comes to the separation of families in this way.

I simply point this out by way of illustrating the complexities of this matter.

But as I say we welcome this report, we appreciate the firm reminder it offers of the risks children confront in detention ... and we take it as a validation of the policies of this Government, policies that have, as I say, reduced the number of children in detention from nearly 1500 when we took office to just 126 now.

The Commission suggests that a Royal Commission be established to further inquire into the situation of children in detention.

I do not propose to do this, and I know that on this point Professor Triggs and I are in fairly robust disagreement, but it is my view that the Commission's report itself is such a rigorous and thorough piece of research and investigation that no further report is necessary. There will be no further inquiry.

What we propose to do is, with the assistance of the Commission, to look at each of these cases as expeditiously as is possible, with a view of, wherever possible, removing these children from detention and seeking alternative arrangements on the Australian mainland.

Minister Dutton has taken this on as a high priority.

Now there is another issue. I am aware that some members of the Government have expressed the view, today and overnight, that the timing of this report carries a whiff of ... I hesitate to use the word ... but of bias against this Government, bias of an ideological nature from the Commission.

As Prime Minister, I make no comment on that. The Commission is an independent body. The fact that this report did not begin until the change of government in 2013 when so many children were detained before that date is something on which you or others may draw your own conclusions.

I am reassured that when I read the report, as I have done, that when I read the report I see it deals with the period of the previous government as well ... and I am satisfied that the Commission's first interest is not ideology but the welfare of these children.

That is also the Government's first priority.

Are there any questions?

Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum.