Prof Gillian Triggs
President, Australian Human Rights Commission
Dear Prof Triggs, I refer to your interview on the ABC 7.30 program on December 3rd, 2013, with Sabra Lane. In that interview (Two-fingered salutes and TPVs – the asylum debate heats up) I noted your comment that:
“Under Government policy TPV also not be given to any future illegal arrivals ….”
I was disappointed with your remark, in that it infers that asylum-seekers arriving in Australia by boat are somehow guilty of doing something illegal which, of course, is not the case.
Whilst I appreciate that it would not have been your intention to mislead viewers of the program, the fact remains that there is a huge amount of confusion amongst the citizenry of our country at present, due to the insistence of both the Minister for Immigration & the Prime Minister to publicly make the same assertion, knowing it to be false.
Under the circumstances, I believe that you & the Australian Human Rights Commission have a particular duty of care to ensure that you avoid adding to public confusion & potentially jeopardising the rights of refugees, legally seeking asylum in this country.
John Richardson, Wallagoot NSW, a CLA member