Attorney General George Brandis has been officially censured by the Senate for his treatment of Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs.
Triggs was the subject of a series of personal attacks during a Senate estimates hearing last week, which caused the Australian public to defend the president with the hashtag #IStandWithGillianTriggs.
During the hearing, the Attorney General’s secretary gave evidence pointing to the fact that Brandis had arranged a job offer for Triggs in return for her resignation from the HRC. This revelation caused a series of questions about whether this kind of offer constitutes unlawful bribery or inducement.
Questions around the legality of Brandis’s conduct led many members of the public and parliament to suggest that it is Brandis – not Triggs – who should be preparing a resignation.
As a result, ALP Senator Penny Wong this morning moved a motion in the Senate to censure Brandis for his conduct in relation to Triggs and the Forgotten Children report.
While the censure motion focused on Brandis’s attempt to bribe Triggs and induce her resignation from an independent statutory body, it also refers to Brandis’s broader treatment of the children in detention issue, and it questions his commitment to human rights. It describes him as being “unfit to hold the office of Attorney General”.
The censure has five key points. It reads:
“I move that the senate censures the attorney-general (Senator Brandis) for:
(1) failing to defend the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, from malicious attacks;
(2) seeking to obtain the resignation of Professor Triggs by facilitating the offer of an alternative role that would have required her to relinquish her position as President;
(3) refusing to fully account for his conduct when appearing before a committee of the Senate;
(4) undermining Australia’s commitment to upholding human rights; and
(5) being unfit to hold the office of Attorney-General.”
Some senators, including Nick Xenophon, objected to the severity of the final point of the censure: being unfit to hold the office of Attorney General.
The motion passed nonetheless, with the fifth point included, with 35 votes to 32. It was supported by the ALP, the Greens and Palmer United Party senators, including Jacqui Lambie.
Lambie spoke in favour of the motion, saying the attacks on Triggs were “vicious and extreme” and that they constituted “pathetic stupid politics”.
Greens leader Christine Milne also spoke in favour of the motion, saying: “We do not believe he is fit to hold the office of Attorney General and not only that, his behaviour has demeaned the Senate and the parliament”.
When Brandis defended himself against the censure motion, he repeated his view that Triggs’ report on children in detention was “partisan”. He said the Commission is designed to be above politics, and that as Triggs’ report favoured one side of politics, she had failed as its president.
He also repeated that he has “lost confidence in Professor Triggs”.
So what are the consequences of a Senate censure? Officially, there are none. It is a warning that the parliament is disapproving of the behaviour of the censure’s subject.
“Although a resolution of the Senate censuring the government or a minister has no direct constitutional or legal consequences, as an expression of the Senate’s disapproval or actions or policies they may have significant political impact,” the Australian Senate website reads.
But the decision to censure Brandis is significant nonetheless. According to the Australian Senate, he is one of the only Attorneys General in Australia’s history to receive a parliamentary censure. A similar vote of no confidence was passed against the sitting Attorney General in 1973.