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Tim Wilson resigns to seek Liberal preselection for seat of Goldstein | Tim Wilson resigns to seek Liberal preselection for seat of Goldstein |
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The human rights commissioner Tim Wilson has resigned to seek Liberal party preselection in Andrew Robb’s Victorian seat. | |
Wilson, a former Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) policy director whose appointment to the Human Rights Commission attracted controversy, announced the decision on Monday. | |
He is seeking to contest the seat of Goldstein after Robb, the outgoing minister for trade, decided to retire from politics at this year’s election. | |
Related: Tim Wilson: government should apologise over sacked Nauru Save the Children staff | Related: Tim Wilson: government should apologise over sacked Nauru Save the Children staff |
Wilson, who is just two years into his five-year term at the commission, said he was “very proud” of his work including boosting the profile and importance of free speech and religious freedom. | |
“The role of Australia’s human rights commissioner is to start these conversations. It is up to the parliament to finish them,” he said in a statement. | |
“It’s also the role of the parliament to deal with many other issues that I am passionate about. That’s why I am announcing today my intention to resign the office of Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner effective from Friday, 19 February, to seek preselection to be the Liberal party’s candidate for the federal electorate of Goldstein. | |
“This is a tough decision for me, but the right one. The people of Goldstein deserve someone who will fight for them.” | |
Wilson said parliament needed people who were prepared to take responsibility, make tough decisions and work to fix problems. | |
“This is not a time to be timid. It’s a time to be bold,” he said. “Our country faces big challenges: debt and deficits, high taxes and youth unemployment, to name a few.” | |
Robb said last week he hoped there would be a strong female candidate in the race to succeed him because “the country needs more strong female candidates in the parliament” - a comment that was seen as a strong endorsement of Georgina Downer, the daughter of former foreign minister Alexander Downer. | |
The attorney general, George Brandis, appointed Wilson as the so-called “freedom commissioner” to a five-year term shortly after the 2013 election, saying the Human Rights Commission had been taking “a narrow and selective view of the statutory function and failed to give sufficient attention to freedom as one of the most fundamental human rights”. | |
Related: Respecting religious freedom has become more complex, Tim Wilson says | Related: Respecting religious freedom has become more complex, Tim Wilson says |
Wilson resigned from the IPA and as a member of the Victorian division of the Liberal party when he took up the position. | |
His appointment drew criticism because the IPA had previously called for the abolition of the Human Rights Commission. | |
In a Senate estimates committee hearing last week, Labor asked Wilson to rule himself out of any preselections while he occupied his current role. “I will not engage in hypotheticals about what I would do in the future,” he replied. | |
Labor’s shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the government should ensure no repeat of the “shameful” five-month delay in filling the position of sex discrimination commissioner. | |
“He [Wilson] has certainly done the right thing in completely resigning from his very high office,” Dreyfus told the ABC on Monday. |