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Attorney-General George Brandis not doing his job, says former human rights commissioner Graeme Innes

Former disability discrimination and human rights commissioner Graeme Innes has come out swinging against Attorney-General George Brandis, arguing he is not doing his job.

In an article published by The Guardian on Friday, Mr Innes said all the attorneys-general he has worked under stood by the view the Human Rights Commission should give frank and fearless advice, but that changed under Senator Brandis.

He said Senator Brandis played the man and not the ball, something he said was continuing with the attack on the credibility of the president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs.

He also took issue with the appointment of Tim Wilson as the human rights commissioner.

Mr Innes said when he was first appointed to the two commission roles, then-attorney-general Philip Ruddock said he should do the job without fear or favour.

"The 'without fear or favour' process continued under Philip Ruddock and the three attorneys-general in the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government," Mr Innes told The World Today's David Mark.

"It changed under that of George Brandis, where the officers ourselves, the commissioners ourselves, the statutory officers ourselves were questioned, rather than what we were putting to the Government and the attorney from the perspective of the Human Rights Commission.

"Our integrity was questioned in the same way that Gillian Triggs' integrity has been questioned in the last month."

Brandis 'has chosen to attack rather than defend'

Mr Innes said the difference between Senator Brandis and the regimes of other attorneys-general, was that while there may have been disagreement with the views the Disability Commission was expressing, they were never questioned in terms of the way they carried out our job.

"I was berated by one of his staffers after I challenged Myer's criticism of the National Disability Insurance Scheme levy," he said.

"The difference in the comments that were made to me were that my integrity, my judgement, was questioned on that issue, rather than a disagreement about the policy position that I was putting.

"It's the job of an attorney-general to protect statutory officers and judges because we're not in a position to defend ourselves.

"Unfortunately this attorney has chosen, in the case of Gillian Triggs and myself, to attack rather than defend."

Mr Innes said it resulted in it becoming much harder for those in statutory positions to do their job effectively.

"Gillian brought out a report which addressed the issue of children in detention," he said.

"This was something that the Human Rights Commission did three times while I was human rights commissioner. The report that the commission has just brought out addresses issues of kids in detention under Labor and under the Coalition.

"[It] notes that there are less kids in detention under the Coalition than there were under Labor but also notes the impact of the detention on those kids because they've been there for a much longer time and the deleterious health and other impacts on those kids.

"It also notes the much greater difficulty which the commission experienced getting information from the Immigration Department than we did under previous governments.

"It's a balanced report in that sense. It's not a stitch up and it causes considerable extra pain to those whom the Human Rights Commission is defending, kids in detention, other people who experience disadvantage and breaches of their human rights, when our politicians play the person rather than the ball."

Appointment of Tim Wilson 'a contradiction'

Mr Innes also criticised the appointment of Tim Wilson, who is now the human rights commissioner, from the Institute of Public Affairs.

"Tim Wilson came from an organisation that was known to have a policy that the commission should be abolished," he said.

"That seems a contradiction to me, to appoint someone like that as human rights commissioner.

"There was also no selection process, as there has been for the former four or five commissioners before they were appointed, so this was very much a captain's pick.

"What it did was provide the attorney with his representative, his man in the commission.

"The flow-on effect was that by filling a role which both parties in the previous parliament had agreed would be removed - that is the human rights commissioner's role, it would be moved across to the president - there were no resources left in the commission to appoint a disability discrimination commissioner when my term ended last July."

Mr Innes said people with disability were significantly disadvantaged by not having their representative raising policy and human rights issues about people with disability.

"Now Susan Ryan, the Age Discrimination Commissioner, has been asked to do that role on top of her current full-time job and Susan does not have lived experience of disability," he said.

"She's doing the best job she can in the circumstances but those circumstances aren't really viable."