Before an audience of human rights lawyers in Melbourne on Friday night, Professor Triggs did set her sights on a raft of national security legislation that has been passed by successive governments since the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Professor Triggs told the forum a "growing threat to democracy" was the diminishing of human rights and expansion of "discretionary, often non-compellable ministerial powers".
"Respective governments have been remarkably successful in persuading parliaments to pass laws that are contrary, even explicitly contrary, to common law rights and to the international human rights regime to which Australia is a party," she said.
She said counterterrorism laws were passed with "unseemly haste" last year and the proposal to strip citizenship from foreign fighters who are "potentially dual nationals" was an example of executive power which had gone too far.
"This proposal strikes at the heart of Australia as a largely migrant country," she said.
"Not only may this idea violate Australia's international obligation not to render a person stateless, but also the detention may be at the discretion of a minister without recourse to judicial processes."
Professor Triggs has support from the president of the Court of Appeal of Victoria, Justice Chris Maxwell, who labels the attack on Professor Triggs as "despicable".
"Tonight we have been privileged to have amongst us, one of our foremost warriors, as we have been pleased to see Gillian, you might be bloodied, but you are certainly unbowed," he said.
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