ANGRY at having to answer for his actions as Prime Minister, Paul Keating attacked the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”. Australian democracy has checks and balances that some Prime Ministers simply loathe.

With mainstream media focusing just on leaders, prime ministers are actually believing they are elected by the people. As Tony Abbott is now realising, they are not. They are “the first amongst equals”, there with the “confidence” of the House of Representatives.

The upper houses of our parliaments, the cross-benchers, the parliamentary committees and appointed judicial inquiries and royal commissions, and the courts are just part of the process of accountability. As frustrating as these checks might be for governments, they go some way to ensuring we do not live in a fascist state.

The Ombudsman, the Human Rights Commission, environmental protection agencies and many other agencies are established through legislation to ensure governments are held accountable, to point out inconsistencies and to provide warnings when there are problems within their area of influence.

In some ways this explains the overt anger of the Prime Minister and the government, their attacks, their manipulations and their frustration over the report by the president of the Human Rights Commission, Prof Gillian Triggs.

It was hardly new information. Australians know that we have been putting refugee children in detention.

Her report was levelled at human rights failings of Labor and Liberal governments. The difference is that the conservatives are now in government. And they are becoming more and more strident about criticism.

As Richard Flanagan writing in “The Guardian” suggested: “Triggs was attacked for defending the powerless – and one day another PM will apologise for it.”

This was not one of Tony Abbott’s thought bubbles or a reactive comment. Attorney General George Brandis received the report from the president of the Human Rights Commission on November 11. The following month the Human Rights Commission had 30 per cent of its funding slashed.

In January, the Prime Minister and other senior ministers were lashing out at a commission ruling as “pretty bizarre”, “offensive” and “likely to shake confidence in the institution”. By early February, the government sought Triggs’ resignation. Finally, it released the report on the last possible day under the legislation – February 11.

Funding cuts seem to be a favourite technique to undermine organisations playing a role as watchdog. The Environmental Defender’s Office, Aboriginal Legal Service, the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia, Homelessness Australia and the Refugee Council are just a snapshot of other bodies that have raised the ire of the current government and have paid the price.

The representatives of the most vulnerable in our community seem to be most clearly on the government’s chopping block.

The importance of the separation of powers was brought to the attention of most Australians as long ago as the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into corruption in Queensland at the time of the premiership of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Unfettered power simply leads to corrupt behaviour and ordinary citizens should always consider the Wendell Phillips’ warning about the price of liberty being eternal vigilance.

Sadly, the most concentrated element of the fourth estate, the Murdoch media, has largely sided with the government instead of providing critical analysis. At least we have a growing and more responsible alternative media.

Phillips, an abolitionist attempting to end slavery, was concerned about the human rights of the least powerful. Gillian Triggs should not be pilloried, but rather thanked.