Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, who died on March 10, told Liberal Defence Minister Linda Reynolds that she was about to be attacked over a late-night incident involving a staff member, issuing the first warning of what would become one of the defining scandals of the Morrison government.

Parliamentary sources said Senator Kitching initiated a conversation with Senator Reynolds in the upper house chamber in the first week of February 2021, during which she said she disagreed with plans on her side to leak confidential information provided to a parliamentary committee alleging there had been a cover-up of a sexual assault report.