The president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, has urged young people to seek the truth and speak truth to power, in a grimly defiant speech at the end of a week in which Malcolm Turnbull declared she would not be reappointed.



Triggs used the opportunity of a public appearance at a welfare conference on Friday to dwell extensively on the importance of standing up for facts and evidence, and for shining a light on human rights breaches.

She declared the Australian public had a keen sense of the fair go, and would not be “hoodwinked for very much longer”.



Triggs said she had a duty to shine a light and not shrink in the face of political attacks or “misleading and ideologically distorted reporting by some in the media”.

“I believe I could not live with myself if I didn’t use this opportunity to speak up nationally and internationally,” Triggs told the conference of the Australian Council of Social Service in Sydney.

“When my term is up and I’m digging in my garden, hopefully smelling a rose or two, I couldn’t live with any failure on my part to raise the critical human rights of the day – whether it’s the use of steel restraint chairs in juvenile detention centres, the indefinite detention in dangerous conditions of children, indefinite detention of those with cognitive disabilities, the world’s worst levels of detention of Indigenous people, and the failure to respond adequately to the deaths of women, children and some men in domestic violence, and of course the growing problem of homelessness.”

Triggs has faced unrelenting criticism from members of the Turnbull government, which began with political attacks on its 2015 report into children in immigration detention. That report was savaged by the government as a partisan exercise.

That spilled over into subsequent criticism about the commission’s handling of racial discrimination cases, which has built to a fever pitch over recent months, with Triggs regularly accused of politicising her role.

Triggs has made it known to the government on a number of occasions that she would not seek reappointment when her term at the commission expired next year, but Turnbull made a public point this week of saying the government would not return her to the commission.

Triggs said on Friday she had been asked by people how she lived with the onslaught of criticism from politicians and some sections of the media, but she said her calculation had always been whether she could live with the consequences of not speaking out.

She said there would always be a tension between the commission and government because of the obligations the human rights body had to defend the rights of the vulnerable, but she said this government’s “deep antipathy” to advocacy had been noted by a United Nations special rapporteur.

In October, Michel Forst said Triggs had faced “government intimidation and public questioning of her integrity, impartiality and judgment” after the commission’s inquiry into the child harm in immigration detention.

Triggs said she had deep concern at the growing practice of Australian government ministers of putting their actions beyond judicial supervision and review. She said this was a serious problem, but it was an abstract one to try to communicate to the public.

Speaking directly to young people in the audience, Triggs drolly referenced her own circumstances to warn that taking a stand as a truth teller was not exactly career enhancing.

“Of course I should recognise to the younger people here that to challenge government policy is clearly not a good career move,” she said.

“I really wouldn’t recommend it if you are on the way up. Perhaps it’s an important characteristic of a truth teller to be somewhat older, and not looking for advancement or preferment.

“But my optimistic message is I really think Australians will understand that truth emerges from the shadows.

I really think Australians will understand that truth emerges from the shadows Gillian Triggs

“Australians are good people, they believe in the fair go, even if they don’t want to talk about the treaties I care so much about. They are good people, and I know they cannot be hoodwinked for very much longer.”

Triggs said there was considerable public debate about truth, about whistleblowing, and about whether facts had currency in contemporary culture.

She insisted facts would always matter.

“We hear today that facts don’t matter. We even hear people talk about the concept of post-truth, and we accept deliberately misleading and ideologically distorted reporting by some in the media,” she said.

“But I say, especially to the young ones, get your facts and evidence and law right. In the end the facts and the truth do matter.

“They will always be triumphant in the end.

“Don’t be deterred, speak up and speak out.