Scott Morrison fails the test, outed as a bully

Just when you thought the asylum seeker issue could not get any worse, we had the embarassing spectacle of the $800 Knob himself, the oleaginously and publicly pious Scott Morrison, very average former head of Tourism Australia, currently in charge of the network of concentration camps which house asylum seekers who arrive by boat, fronting the AHRC (Australian Human Rights Commission) with his Department secretary as willing spear-carrier, to take on one of the most formidable and forensic lawyers in Australia, Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs, President of the AHRC.

Watch the video of the AHRC hearing into children in detention here

And you can read The World Today‘s transcript here.

A New Matilda reader also took a transcript.

Public hearing ACT – National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention

Minister Scott Morrison and Department secretary Martin Bowles are involved from time segment 7:30 (full context starting at time segment 1:24:54).

The section related to the end sentence in this New Matilda article is:

Triggs: “…I’ve been there three times, you cannot get into any of the sections without going through armed guards, etc etc”
Bowles: “we do not have armed guards”
Triggs: “…I don’t need to (garbled)…”
Bowles: “we do not have armed guards”
Triggs: “…to describe them as not prisons…”
Bowles: “we do not have armed guards President, I’d like you to acknowledge that”
Triggs: “I’m not sure, but I’m, I’m, um, aahhhh”
Bowles: “I’d like you to acknowledge that, we do not have armed guards”
Triggs: “I will check that with my clients then because some of those guards are armed…”
Bowles: “well I, again, again President, I would like you to check that and I would like you to retract that”
Triggs: “well I ah”
Morrison: “I’d just like to understand what the president is suggesting”
Triggs: “The point I’m making is…”
…
Triggs: “…on any analysis that is either locked detention or a prison”
Morrison: “well Madam President you would’ve been to many gaols and prisons…”
Triggs: “indeed”
Morrison: “…and are you suggesting that Long Bay Gaol is the same as a pool fenced Alternative Place Of Detention at Phosphate Hill on Christmas Island”?
Triggs: “…………um, I would like to move on but basically I have been a practicing lawyer since I was 22 years old so I know a prison when I see it”
Morrison: “Madam President, I’ve just asked you, you’ve said that these places are prisons, now you’ve been in prisons, so you’re telling me that the Phosphate Hill Compound on Christmas Island is the same as Long Bay Gaol?”
Triggs: “I’m not saying they’re equivalent, I’m saying that the, the, prison facilities…”
Morrison: “Well, we can move on then I think Madam President”
Triggs: “Ok…”

So Morrison doesn’t believe that immigration detention is not imprisonment? And bluster-master Morrison thinks it is OK to talk over the top of one of the country’s most respected public servants?

Then he’d better try our random vision test. Ten mixed photographs of prisons and detention facilities. Can you spot the difference?

We cannot. Morrison deludes himself yet again.