Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (15:02): I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today. If there was ever a confirmation of a decision by the Senate to censure a minister, it was Senator Brandis's performance in question time today. Here we have a minister who is dismissive of the important question of ministerial integrity. We have a minister who threw his secretary to the wolves at Senate estimates and who did not even have the courage of his own convictions to go and front the President of the Human Rights Commission and say that he had lost confidence in her and he wanted her to move on and that a job would be available if she moved on. He did not have the courage to do that, so he sent the secretary of his department. If ever you could see by the look on anyone's face that they had landed themselves in real trouble, it was the secretary of the department, Mr Moraitis, who was sitting there looking so uncomfortable. He wanted to be anywhere but in Senate estimates. When you look at what has happened, it was a concerted and organised attack on a woman of significant integrity: the President of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs. What Senator Brandis did was to unleash the attack dogs on President Triggs. That was supported by the shock jocks on the radio, supported by News Limited, led by The Australian, and led at the estimates committee by the Bjelke-Petersen-era bovver boys, Senator Macdonald and Senator O'Sullivan. They were there— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Cameron, I think I will ask you to withdraw. Senator CAMERON: I withdraw. It was pursued by the bovver boys of the Bjelke-Petersen era, out there thinking they have gone back 30 to 40 years; they can treat people with absolute contempt; and they can do whatever they like. That is the position that was set about by Senator Brandis in his attack on the President of the Human Rights Commission. Senator Brandis prances around the place preening himself continuously. Well, there is not too much prancing and preening going on at the moment, as the Federal Police will be lining up to ask him detailed questions on why oh why he sent his secretary off to get a commitment from the President of the Human Rights Commission to give up her position in return for another position somewhere else, simply because Senator Brandis does not like the President of the Human Rights Commission and does not like the Human Rights Commission as a body. And he is not on his own there. It is the whole conservative coalition. They do not like the Human Rights Commission. They do not like the president of that commission. This was too smart by half by Senator Brandis, and there are further questions that will need to be asked. It is untenable for a minister to send his secretary to offer up an alternative job to the President of the Human Rights Commission because that minister and the coalition do not like the individual that is in the position and do not like the commission itself. When you saw what has gone on and you saw the estimates hearing, you must have been appalled. Everyone was appalled, looking at what was going on there. This was from Senator Brandis, who was a so-called moderate in the coalition in the past. This is where the moderates are in the coalition now: prepared to attack the female president of the commission because they do not like her, and they sent out the bovver boys to attack her mercilessly. This is not what democracy is about, and Senator Brandis has lots of questions to answer. He has failed to answer them. There is no doubt that the censure was an appropriate censure, and this minister is not fit— (Time expired)