Advisory Committee members support Prof Gillian Triggs and the Human Rights Commission

Statement by Members of the Advisory Committee of the Kaldor Centre

Professor Gillian Triggs is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of NSW.
 
Fellow members of the Advisory Committee are concerned by the professional and personal attacks on Professor Triggs by some media and by some Federal Government politicians over her role as President of the Australian Human Rights Commission.
 
The role of AHRC President is a statutory appointment. Independence of the judiciary and statutory office holders is a cornerstone of democracy in Australia. Parliamentarians and media commentators who resort to ad hominem attacks - instead of debating the merits of the commission’s report on Children in Detention – degrade the country’s political system.
 
Parliamentarians and other commentators are fully entitled to disagree with the AHRC’s conclusions, but the unrelenting barrage of personal criticism which has been directed at Professor Triggs in recent weeks violates our most fundamental values.
 
We therefore wish to declare our support for Professor Triggs and call on our parliamentarians and media to respect the independence of the AHRC President, and that of the Commission.
 
Signed by members of the Kaldor Centre Advisory Committee: 

•  Andrew Kaldor AM (Chairman)
• The Hon Catherine Branson QC
• Julian Burnside AO QC
• Professor Stephen Castles
• Professor David Dixon
• Emeritus Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill
• The Hon Nick Greiner AC
• Renata Kaldor AO
• Maria Teresa Rojas