Human rights hypocrite
HUMAN Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs is the last person to lecture anyone on the human rights of children. But that’s exactly what her commission’s politically inspired report into children in immigration detention attempts to do.
Last August Triggs, a darling of hypocritical Labor luvvies, was the subject of a fawning profile by Sydney Morning Herald feature writer Tim Elliott.
“The first thing you notice about Triggs, aside from her pale honey coloured hair and pearl earrings, are her manners, which are mesmerising and create a force field of niceness, a form of very agreeable mind control. After half an hour with Triggs, it’s possible to imagine doing virtually anything for her, which is another way of saying she is a natural born leader.”
According to a footnote, the SMH article was in fact recycled from material which appeared in Sydney Magazine a year earlier in April 2013.
What makes it so pertinent today is Triggs’ description of her own treatment of one of her children, daughter Victoria, who was born in 1984 with a profound chromosomal disorder known as Edwards syndrome.
“Her condition usually results in the death of the baby before or shortly after birth. In fact, the doctors kept saying, ‘Just leave her in the corner and she’ll die.’ So, it sounds terrible, but I’d look at Victoria and think, ‘Well, you’re going to die, so I’m not going to invest too much in you.’ But she didn’t die. She had this inner rod of determination, and she simply refused to die.”
When Victoria was about six months of age, Triggs and her then partner took her home from hospital and with the assistance of the Uniting Church, found a family who took over her primary care until her death at the age of 21.
Triggs said the arrangement bothered her but rationalised it thus: “Yes, because you have a child and you expect to look after her. But in the end I simply made the judgment that I would rather put my time into my other children and family, because I also never believed she would live to that age.”
Had an appointee of a conservative government made such a statement, he or she would unquestionably have been hounded relentlessly by the ABC and the Fairfax press.
Not so Triggs.
Indeed, since her appointment in 2012 and the subsequent change of government, she has been one of the leading spear carriers in the partisan war against the Coalition Government descending to levels unplumbed by Labor’s gutter-crawling parliamentary smear merchants.
Triggs’ commission failed to take any action on children in immigration detention when the numbers peaked after Labor dismantled the Howard government’s lifesaving border protection policies.
When Labor came to office in 2007, there were four people in immigration detention, and no children.
During Labor’s six chaotic years of government, 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats and stretched the capacity of the intelligence and security agencies, even as Labor stripped them of more than $700 million, effectively hamstringing their operational capacity.
In Labor’s last year in office, 302 boats arrived — though Triggs was apparently unaware of this.
There were almost 1400 children in detention then. Today there are fewer than 200, or close to 90 per cent improvement.
" ... volunteering in Australia ...
economic contribution to Australian society outstrips revenue sources from mining, agriculture and the retail sector ...
declaring the true extent of its monetary value to be more than $200 billion a year."
Where would the government, of any party, come up with $200 BILLION ANNUALLY?
Hardly short term as you state.
Yes, I can see where the government should step in, but neither party did when the opportunity arose.
Re neocon fascist policies (corporate wish lists) whatever these are ... historically, haven't both parties bowed to these.