FRAN KELLY: Senator Penny Wong is Labors Senate Leader. Shes a member of that Senate estimates committee. She joins us in the Parliament House studios. Senator Wong, good morning.
SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE: Good morning Fran, good to be with you.
KELLY:The Attorney General, George Brandis says the job offer we just heard there was made to save Gillian Triggs reputation in a sense. Do you take him at his word that he was acting with good will and good intentions?
WONG: Well I dont think anything about how this Government has hysterically responded to the Human Rights Commission report has been a matter of goodwill. I think theres been an over the top response from a Government that doesnt like criticism and has responded with deeply personal attacks on Professor Triggs. In terms of the evidence yesterday it certainly was quite extraordinary and it was quite clear what offer had been made. As you said in your opening, Mark Dreyfus, the shadow Attorney General after consideration of the evidence given yesterday has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police. I dont really want really to comment further on the criminal complaint, I think I like many other Australians will await the outcome of their assessment with great interest.
KELLY: Nevertheless, its an extreme step to make to refer the Federal Attorney General and the head of the department to the Federal Police when both have sat in an Estimates committee that you are a member of denying they offered any inducement and Gillian Triggs herself said she didnt recall the precise words of that conversation with the department secretary.
WONG: I will refer you to what Professor Triggs said. She said that she understood there to be a link between the offer of an alternative role and her resignation and whatever the Federal Police find, I think Australians will agree with Professor Triggs comment that she found this offer disgraceful. As has been frankly the bullying behaviour from the Prime Minister down to the bovver boys we saw in the Estimates committee yesterday towards this President of the Human Rights Commission and to the institution.
KELLY: Its very difficult, its a very high bar as you say for the Federal Police to prove there was any kind of inducement for criminal behaviour. Is Labor just doing this to get the headlines?
WONG: Not at all. This has been in the public arena these allegations have been in the public arena for sometime. We considered and Ill leave Mark Dreyfus to talk through in detail his consideration of this, but certainly we did consider what evidence was given yesterday which was quite extraordinary. I mean I dont think, youve been reporting a long time Fran, and I cant recall a time where you would have reported in the federal context or maybe you can, a situation where a statutory officer an independent statutory officer has before an estimates committee given evidence that she was encouraged to resign and that an alternative role was offered to her in the context of a full scale, full frontal attack from the Prime Minister down against this person personally and against this institution.
KELLY: Its seven minutes to eight on breakfast. Our guest this morning is Senator Penny Wong, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and Shadow Minister for Trade and Investment. Just in terms of the strength of the attack from the Government, from the Prime Minister down as you say against Gillian Triggs. The Prime Minister in question time again criticised the judgement, the impartiality of Gillian Triggs. He also criticised her competence and he accused her of a political stitch up. Where does this leave in your view the Human Rights Commission and Gillian Triggs capacity to preside over it.
WONG: Where I think it leaves for the Australian peoplein no doubt about this Prime Minister and this Governments capacityto engage in personal partisan attack on anybody or any institution that criticises it. Thats what this is, what its about and theres a pattern of behaviour here, a Government which has sacked public servants, axed the Climate Commission, thats defunded the ABC. And now, faced with a report that frankly is critical of both sides of politics, instead of copping it chin, or responding to the report or considering the report soberly, theyve engaged in nothing more than a hysterical attack to Triggs and the institution. The one thing
KELLY: If the Government has lost confidence in this institution, is it viable for the president of that institution to continue if it has lost as the Attorney General has said the bipartisan support?
WONG: Well Fran, do you think that the standards of our democratic institutions and the principles of our democracy around bodies like the Human Rights Commission which are independent of government should be set by some of the bullies in the Coalition? The thing that George Brandis said yesterday, probably the only thing he said yesterday where I agreed with him, he said a number of times to the estimates committee that there were a number of people on his side of politics who were not supporters of the Human Rights Commission. That is the truth of the matter. We have a range of people inside the Coalition who appear to be running the party who dont like this institution and who have decided they will use this report, which is inconvenient for the Government, to engage in a full scale attack and I think it is undemocratic. Regardless of what Professor Triggs or any Human Rights Commissioner says - and remember in Government there were times when the Human Rights Commission took a very different view from the Labor Government - but this is part of our democracy and to have the first law officer of this country, not only fail to defend the Commission but then to engage in a cowardly attack in estimates on Professor Triggs personally, I think says a lot about why this man is unfit to be Attorney General, and it says a lot about his character as a person.
KELLY: Senator Wong, thank you very much for joining us.
WONG: Good to speak with you.