Labor has formally asked the Australian federal police to investigate whether the job offer made on behalf of the attorney general, George Brandis, to the Human Rights Commission president, Gillian Triggs, was an inducement that constitutes “corrupt and unlawful conduct.”

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, wrote to the police on Tuesday after Triggs publicly confirmed she had been asked to resign and offered another senior position in a way that was “clearly linked” by the secretary of the attorney general’s department, on behalf on Brandis.

“The attorney general’s offer to an independent statutory officer of an inducement to resign her position as president, with the object of affecting the leadership of the Australian Human Rights Commission to avoid political damage to the Abbott government may constitute corrupt and unlawful conduct,” Dreyfus wrote.

“I request the matter be investigated by the Australian federal police as a priority and that it be referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, if appropriate.”

The department secretary, Chris Moraitis, confirmed that he had told Triggs she had lost the confidence of the attorney general, and offered her another “specific” position, but denied he had asked her to resign. He did concede that she would have had to leave the commission if she had accepted the other position, which was not identified.

Tony Abbott earlier batted away claims the government had offered Triggs an inducement.



The prime minister ratcheted up his criticism of Triggs on Tuesday after the president forcefully defended her independence during a Senate estimates committee hearing, where senators raised serious concerns about the government’s attempt on 3 February to pressure her to quit.

Moraitis, denied specifically asking Triggs to resign, but said he told her at the meeting in Sydney that Brandis, had “lost confidence” in her presidency.

Moraitis said he had conveyed the message that “the government would be prepared to consider positively a senior legal role for her”.

Labor and Greens senators said the alternative job offer appeared to be part of applying pressure on Triggs to resign part-way through her five-year term as the head of the nation’s statutory human rights body.

The Greens senator Sarah-Hanson Young read to the committee hearing parts of the Criminal Code to the hearing relating to bribery of commonwealth public officials.

The Labor senator Jacinta Collins also asked Moraitis “how it did not occur to you that taking that course of action would be regarded as an inducement”. He replied: “I didn’t take it as an inducement. It was an explanation of the attorney’s perspective on the chairperson.”

Triggs said she understood the other job to be related to her experience as an international lawyer. She said she “certainly very shaken and very shocked” at the resignation request and immediately rejected it, believing it would undermine the independence of the Human Rights Commission.

Triggs said she would not use the term inducement, but there was “no doubt” in her mind that the resignation request and job offer “were connected”.

“I rejected it out of hand. I thought it was a disgraceful proposal,” she said.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, pursued the issue in parliamentary question time on Tuesday, asking whether Abbott or his office was aware Brandis had “authorised this inducement”.

Abbott said given that Triggs “would rather not use that term, members opposite should not either”. But he said: “It is true that the government has lost confidence in the president of the Human Rights Commission.”

The prime minister reinforced his previous criticism of Triggs over the commission’s report on the health impacts of long-term immigration detention on children, arguing it was “absolutely crystal clear this inquiry by the president of the Human Rights Commission is a political stitch-up”.

Asked why the government was prepared to offer Triggs another job if it had truly lost confidence in her, Abbott said he was “not aware of what’s been canvassed in Senate estimates”.

When Brandis was asked the same question in the estimates hearing, he said he recognised Triggs’ standing “as a distinguished international lawyer” and did not want to see her reputation damaged.

But the attorney general said he had formed the view that her position at the commission had become untenable as she had lost the confidence of the Coalition side of politics.

The concerns related to her testimony to a previous estimates hearing in November about her meetings with Labor ministers in the lead-up to the 2013 election.

Numerous members of the Coalition aired concerns about the timing of the decision to launch the inquiry into children in detention after the change of government.

Triggs said on Tuesday she had met with Labor’s then-immigration minister, Tony Burke, during caretaker mode in 2013 at Burke’s invitation. Burke wanted to brief her on the new Labor policy on asylum seekers.

Labor’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, said the welfare of children in immigration detention “should be above the gutter politics we have seen from the Liberal government”.

“The ongoing orchestrated effort by the Abbott government to besmirch Professor Triggs is a shameful attempt to divert attention away from the important findings and recommendations in her report,” Marles said in a statement. “Professor Triggs is an eminent Australian who has served in her current role without fear or favour.”