In a few short months, former NSW Premier and ALP veteran minister Kristina Keneally has rocketed from federal upper house backbencher to take a right-hand seat in Anthony Albanese’s newly-minted cabinet. On Sunday she was named the Labor spokesperson for Home Affairs, taking on Peter Dutton in what will be a three year-long battle over immigration policy.
While a position on the ALP frontbench is no surprise for the rising star of the party’s centre-right, Keneally’s appointment to the newly created Home Affairs portfolio is controversial as she has been an outspoken critic of offshore detention and boat turnbacks. Though not outright condemning the practice, she previously urged Labor to adopt a “compassionate” response.
Within hours of the announcement, Dutton slammed Albanese for his choice, labelling her appointment a “hospital pass”. “Kristina Keneally is against every element of Operation Sovereign Borders,” he said. “There is nobody less qualified in the Labor Party on border protection policies than Kristina Keneally, yet she’s ended up with the portfolio.”
Since the announcement, Keneally has arguably backflipped on her once-held position. She took to Twitter to reaffirm her party’s endorsement of “offshore processing, boat turnbacks where safe to do so, and regional resettlement”. So how exactly did Keneally get here, and how might the party’s immigration policy unfold under her leadership?
Rise to the top
Keneally is no stranger to politics and no fool: her upwards trajectory is due in no small part to her successful understanding of the NSW Labor Party’s factional machinations.
In 2002, she was chosen for the NSW eastern suburbs seat of Heffron in a bitter contest against veteran incumbent MP Deirdre Grusovin, prompting a (quickly abandoned) Supreme Court challenge from Grusovin against the ALP’s preselection process. After being elected in 2003 and going on to serve as the NSW minister for disability services and planning minister, Keneally was pegged in 2009 as a potential party leadership challenger against then-premier Nathan Rees. She vehemently denied her intention to run all the way up until November 2008. But less than a month later, the NSW’s powerful centre-unity faction withdrew support from Rees and threw its votes behind Keneally who won the party room ballot.
Rees attributed the win to corrupt party powerbrokers Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi, slamming Keneally as their “puppet” — a title that Keneally struggled to shake as NSW’s first female premier until the 2011 state election when she, and many of her Labor comrades were booted from office in the biggest swing in Australian political history.
Keneally took a step back from politics, becoming a Sky News presenter, but came back on the scene in 2017. She failed to take the seat of Bennelong from John Alexander in that year’s byelection, but got a second chance at a federal spot when senator Sam Dastyari resigned in 2018 over a Chinese-related donations scandal.
She won a great deal of public support during the federal election campaign as Shorten’s larrikin fellow-traveller and “attack dog” on the infamous “Bill Bus”. And it was from there her name was publicly thrown around for senior leadership. Not one role, but two: last week saw her named Deputy Opposition Leader to Penny Wong in the Senate; a few days later, Ed Husic took a side-step from the Labor frontbench to open up a NSW Centre-Unity-held spot for Keneally.
“We need to ensure someone of Kristina’s enormous talents has the opportunity to make a powerful contribution on the frontline,” Husic wrote on Facebook.
Home truths on Home Affairs?
Dutton has been quick to point to articles Keneally wrote for The Guardian in 2015 and 2017 in which she criticised boat turnbacks and offshore detention.
Keneally is no stranger to speaking out against the institution to which she subscribes. Keneally — the daughter of a Eucharistic minister — is a devout Catholic. She attended Catholic school, earned her political science degree from a Catholic university, undertook a Master’s degree in theology and met her husband at World Youth Day. And yet, she has publicly called for same-sex marraige since 2011, standing in direct contravention of not only the views of the church but of then-Labor prime minister Julia Gillard, a staunch atheist. She’s also criticised Pope Francis’ likening of abortion to “hiring a hitman”, and argued for access to safe and legal terminations.
But Keneally appears to have fallen into party line following Sunday’s cabinet announcement. She told ABC Radio’s AM on Monday that the goal of the opposition is “keeping people safe but also not losing our collective national soul, not losing our collective national conscience”.
She has been quick to reassure voters that her party’s position on immigration and resettlement has not changed despite her appointment. Anthony Albanese, too, has brushed off her previous attacks of offshore processing, blaming them on her Catholic faith.
“Offshore processing, boat turnbacks where safe to do so and regional resettlement are important tools. They are necessary tools to keep our borders secure, to keep our country safe and to ensure that we are treating people humanely,” she said. She added that she plans to take a “blow torch” to Dutton’s performance, and has criticised a “blowout” in asylum seekers arriving by plane under his leadership.
That may not be the kind of “blowtorch” many of Dutton’s detractors — and supporters of Keneally’s previous comments — are looking for, but the issue is certainly heating up either way.
What do you think of Kristina Keneally’s appointment to a shadow Home Affairs portfolio? Send your comments to boss@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name.
Keneally would do well to remind the Public that the Dept. Dutton uses as his tool for dog whistle, is actually much broader than the bit Dutton represents. It’s too important to escape scrutiny.
The Government have been allowed to get away with using the miniscule amount of refugees who come by boat as a symbol. A symbol for a danger that exists only in the armoury of Liberal party strategists.
I’m looking forward to KK using her position in the Senate to scrutinise Dutton, including the dud deal Turnbull signed up to that has seen alleged people who actually murdered Australians welcomed into this country.
Go KK
We can only hope Hamster. I’ve yet to be impressed by KK. Maybe her Theology degree will provide her with ammunition to counter Scomo’s divine inspiration or a blowtorch to rain fire and brimstone on Dutton. Fight fire with fire, as my grandpa used to say before they sacked him from the Fire Brigade.
Agree, RH. Dutton knows that KK’s job is to dog him, not to be a supporter of turn backs etc. She knows it too, and that is why she’s there. Dutton’s “outrage” is all for show and pre-emptive of the onslaught he expects from a proven political performer.
‘She won a great deal of public support during the federal election campaign as Shorten’s larrikin fellow-traveller’
Any evidence behind this statement
I think “public support” is a bit much. Journos and politics followers like us greatly overestimate how much the general public even knows who any of these people are. I doubt more than 20% of voting age Australians could pick Albanese out of a lineup let alone Keneally. 20% is probably generous.
But support among members and committed supporters? Sure. I saw/heard Kenneally mentioned a lot in internet comments, Twitter, discussions among political people in lunchrooms, etc.
Labour post-Keating has greatly lacked the ability to counterattack in a way that bites. Latham had it, but unfortunately had other deficiencies. Gillard had it in opposition but only occasionally had it as Prime Minister. The likes of Penny Wong, John Faulkner and Doug Cameron have a limited version that works in the environment of senate estimates with a captive subject to cross-examination but never really plays as well in a straight press conference or doorstop. Neither Shorten nor Albo has it. Keneally has it.
Gillard’s performance against Tony Abbott when she was Shadow Health Minister was a significant factor in the end of the Abbott government, turning the tables on one of the Howard government’s strongest communicators and making him and health policy into a huge liability for the Howard government. One suspects Albo is looking for Keneally to do the same thing to Dutton.
Spot on Arky.
It seems an unusual thing to say given the ultimate outcome, but KK impressed me a lot with how she handled herself in the dying days of the last NSW Labor Government. By the time she took the leadership the situation was so irretrievable that no human being alive could have turned it around, yet she faced up to a rabidly hostile media in a way that showed a very sharp mind and serious political nous.
I’m not surprised Peter Dutton has come out so hard because Kristina is probably the last person he wanted as a direct opponent.
I meant Gillard’s performance was a factor in the end of the Howard government of course.
If you’re going to give Dutton a bit of curry, would help to be in the same House, not the Senate. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Well spotted. What are they going to do, engage in debate via press conference?
I guess we’ll find out how good Dutton is with social media.
Question Time is greatly overrated. Nobody watches it, and basing your strategy around what the commercial media MIGHT excerpt and play on the news? Come on.
The point of Keneally is to go after Dutton in ways that make the news. And yes, that will include press conferences. Doorstops. Appearances on Q&A, on the radio, on telly shows etc.
I’m looking forward to the contest. KK has demonstrated the capacity to fight and to cut through while doing so. Finally, there is someone with a bit of mongrel about her and that has been lacking.
To add to that she has a religious faith that seems to cause her to speak with compassion. Dutton will need to be careful. He risks sounding like a bully and copping a decent whack at same time.
Unless cruelty is an LNP policy for treating boat people, then KristinaK will have a huge scope for poking at their version of the bipartisanship on this issue.
It’s also interesting that the new and experienced and fresh long term equality advocate KK will only be deputy to stale old PennyW, the anti equality lesbian in Gillard’s government.