Allegations that Labor senator Kimberley Kitching faced bullying and ostracism from within her own ranks before her untimely death last week have rocked federal Labor.
The narrative, which began with whispers about the toll of a bruising preselection battle, was given life by a series of stories in The Australian alleging senior Labor figures including Penny Wong had helped isolate Kitching.
Since then figures on the right — for whom Kitching was always a sympathetic figure because of her hawkishness on China — have used her death as an opportunity to attack Labor over an alleged culture of bullying and harassment.
On Sky News, Andrew Bolt, who called Kitching a “close friend”, said he was very angry about her treatment from senior Labor figures.
“The only people who are saying ‘Please don’t talk about this Labor bullying now’, as they wipe the crocodile tears from their eyes, are the people who didn’t love Kimberley,” he said.
“People mainly of the Left. People, maybe, with a guilty conscience.”
Staying with Sky, Peta Credlin, who played politics harder than most during her time in Canberra, claimed Kitching had been “hounded to her death” by Labor.
“Worse still, and perhaps this is where it hit Kitching the hardest, the damage inflicted on her, the barbs and the bullying, came not from her opponents but, as alleged by Markson, her own Labor colleagues,” she said.
“Most particularly, three other women who should have had her back — senators Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher, and someone who was once my colleague here at Sky, Kristina Keneally.”
Writing in The Australian yesterday, outgoing Liberal MP Nicolle Flint said there had been something “very wrong” with the response from senior Labor figures to Kitching’s death, arguing the grieving had somehow felt more strained than the tributes.
Flint argued Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and Wong needed to be “held to account” over Kitching’s treatment, claiming Labor had failed to look after one of its own while simultaneously attacking the government over its serious and well-documented gender problems.
That line has been taken up by senior government MPs. This week Prime Minister Scott Morrison said bullying allegations were “serious claims” which couldn’t be dismissed. Defence Minister Peter Dutton went further, telling 2GB that Albanese’s response had been inadequate.
“The Labor Party are open about it in private, they’re scathing of their two colleagues, and for Anthony Albanese to say, ‘Well, there’s nothing to see here and I’m not going to investigate it’ or ‘I’m not going to ask Penny Wong or Kristina Keneally whether they’ve got any remorse or whether they think they have learnt anything from it, or that they could apologise to the family’ I think shows a complete lack of leadership,” Dutton said.
Kitching’s funeral is set for Monday. The days preceding have been dominated not by her memory but by a political fight, and an opportunity for conservatives and their media boosters to “put pressure on Labor”.
This morning Wong, Keneally and Gallagher, the three senators supposedly referred to by Kitching as the “mean girls”, responded to allegations in the media about their treatment of her.
“The allegations of bullying are untrue. Other assertions which have been made are similarly inaccurate,” they said.
“After these matters were publicly reported more than two years ago, Senator Wong discussed the matter with Senator Kitching and apologised. Senator Wong understood that apology was accepted. The comments that have been reported do not reflect Senator Wong’s views, as those who know her would understand, and she deeply regrets pain these reports have caused.”
Since evidence-free speculation is the basis for all the KK chatter, here’s mine. Senator Kitching was in the wrong party – she seemed closer to the DLP than the ALP, a speculation based on her apparent close friendships with Senator James Paterson, Andrew Hastie, Pauline Hanson and just this morning Peter Dutton, who called her “a dear friend”. There has been speculation that she was thought to have been leaking to the Opposition, which would be a reason why she was excluded from the Tactics Committee – in other words she was not trusted as a colleague. She belonged to the Wolverine element of the Parliamentary Joint Committee for Intelligence and Security, in other words embarking on her own foreign policy tangent. Interestingly Anthony Byrne, another of the Wolverines, is not standing for Holt at the coming election.
And in all the hand-wringing that we are currently witnessing, would someone please remind Credlin & co that she wasn’t “bullied to death”, as that implies suicide. She had a heart attack. Same as Shane Warne.
I’m sorry but I can’t possibly believe that PDutty has friends.
um…ah..careful he might hear you!!!
And if she hadn’t died – tragically, quite young – of a heart attack she likely wouldn’t be in the news, even as the alleged victim of bullying, and I hazard most people would never have heard of her. How concerned were Bolt, Credlin, Dutton and so on for her wellbeing while she was alive, and is there any evidence for such concern? My only strong recollection of her from the news was in connection with what I remember as Shorten’s being heavily involved in getting her on the Labor senate ticket. This disgusting kerfuffle shows again how the coalition and Murdoch hacks will say and do absolutely anything in the attempt to besmirch Albo’s reputation and distract from coalition incompetence, even if it means exploiting a person’s death.
My recollection goes back further to times when the names of the indivisible power-couple, KK and her husband, came up coupled to words such as vandalism, vitriol, financial collapse, bankruptcy, false statements (and so on). So, all in all, seems to me KK was no shrinking violet but rather a party apparatchik who relished the cut-and-thrust, and, with the absence of VEXNEWS to do the dirty, she played the card du jour of bullying as part of the chess moves to consolidate her position from real and imagined intra-party opponents.
Fair statement.
Yes, I wonder how any living Labor politicians would react, if the likes of Bolt, Credlin, Hanson, Dutton, etc, claimed them as close friends? I tend to doubt if any of those far right ideologues, would have cultivated genuine friendships with prominent Labor figures. But now that a Labor politician has died, their allegedly strong affection, is motivating them to bravely take a stand against those who would say nasty words. Perleaasse!
to use the creature in Alice in Wonderland phrase; ex…act t.ACT..ACT…ly
When will blatant lies and foul innuendos for tawdry political motives, be treated as the utterances of malignant people that they are, and simply not multiplied in this society crushing fashion?
She was a friend of Bolt, and Dutton? Why on earth would she be friends of either of
these two unmannered, ridiculously in love with themselves nonentities? Talk about
putting yourself forward as anything but what they were – the enemy of all socially
aware, caring people. They turn my stomach.
Yes, if what people like Bolt, Credlin, Dutton, Hanson etc, say in public, is representative of how they behave away from the camera, then I can’t imagine places where they gather, being harmonious and caring atmospheres. I mean, can you imagine what the working conditions must be like at Sky After Dark, when pretty well everyone that they put on air, seems to be either a narcissist or a psychopath?
So much so that they are rigorously corralled, rarely the twain even brush, let alone meet.
For fear is thermonuclear fission?
One may judge a person by the company they keep.
Those who pooh-pooh bullying when it emanates from their side of politics, have suddenly become might (self-) righteous about it on this occasion. Surely they’re not going woke???
oh course there is bullying but to use a woman’s death from a heart attack and to blame and name 3 serving senators and politicians and and labor factionalism as the root cause …… that is a bridge too far my friend c’mon mate as Warnie might utter
Because Morrison is such an incompetent PM I keep forgetting how bad Abbott was. Until I read a sentence such as the following: Staying with Sky, Peta Credlin, who played politics harder than most during her time in Canberra, claimed Kitching had been “hounded to her death” by Labor.
Abbott may be relatively invisible at present (and I can’t see Morrison pressing him into action during the forthcoming election campaign) but we still have Credlin rabbiting on with absolutely partisan lies.
Poor fella, my country.
Yes, Credlin, the caring face of fascism.
Try that at the Grauniad!