Joe Hildebrand: Why Kimberley Kitching fallout is a massive political problem

Holding together Labor’s competing and fractious elements is a challenge for Anthony Albanese, especially following the tragic death of Senator Kimberley Kitching, writes Joe Hildebrand.

The deep and bitter fallout from Kimberley Kitching’s awful early death isn’t just a personal and moral challenge for the Labor Party.

It is also a massive political problem, both internally and externally.

Many people outside the inner workings of the party see Labor as a single vessel for the promulgation of socialist-left ideals. The irony is the only people who think this are those on the hard right and socialist lefties themselves.

The truth is the party is at best a sort of patchwork quilt that manages to stitch together an almost limitless number of competing interests, personal fiefdoms and systems of individual patronage.

Senator Kimberley Kitching’s funeral was held on Monday.

There is a reason why the once-dominant Right faction always defined itself as “Labor Unity” and the mantra of the Left was “Let’s get organised!”

Bodies that are genuinely united and organised have no need for such calls to arms.

The much reported enmity between Kitching and her senior Senate colleagues was along a fairly straightforward Left/Right divide. Kitching was a leading light of the Victorian Right and the so-called “mean girls” – her own words, let’s not forget – are the leading Left figure of Senate Leader Penny Wong and Deputy Senate Leader Kristina Keneally.

Senator Katy Gallagher, Senator Kristina Keneally and Senator Penny Wong have been accused of bullying colleague Kimberley Kitching, which they have all strenuously denied. Picture: Sam Mooy

Keneally may technically be a member of the Right but enjoys little support among the still-dominant NSW faction, as proven by her removal from the top of the Senate ticket in favour of the very sound but much lower profile Deb O’Neill.

The undisputed overlord of the Left in NSW is of course Labor leader Anthony Albanese, who is a factional warrior par excellence but no socialist ideologue.

On the contrary, he is a highly intelligent pragmatist who has in fact taken the party to the centre after the Right’s Bill Shorten took it to the left – a real life political version of the 1980s comedy Trading Places.

And it is Albo’s support for ­Keneally that keeps her in the upper echelons of federal Labor, even though she may have the fight of her life on her hands in the Western Sydney heartland seat of Fowler should former Labor mayor Frank Carbone have a crack as an independent.

Meanwhile in the People’s Republic of Victoria, the Right is split – as it often seems to be, south of the Murray – between forces aligned with ­Albanese’s predecessor Shorten, a fierce Kitching ally with whom there is no love lost for the current leader, and Albo’s deputy, the ascendant Richard Marles, who is accused of not acting on Kitching’s complaints of bullying.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese is playing a delicate game of political jenga in order to keep the party's factions happy. Illustration: Terry Pontikos

And behind this split is another split between the two dominant right-wing unions, Shorten’s own alma mater of the Australian Workers Union – supported by the Health Workers Union whose boss rallied to Kitching’s cause on the weekend – and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

Tellingly, it is only in Victoria that the AWU and SDA are split, which tells you more about Victoria than it does about the two unions.

It’s like the whole state is a giant energy field in which the normal laws of politics are reversed.

Adding to the disquiet is an improbable game of footsies between the AWU and the left-wing CFMEU, whose support Shorten needed to back his border protection policies at the Victorian ALP conference of 2018.

But hell, why complicate things?

Anthony Albanese at Avoca Beach.

Point being, Labor is one big glorious hot mess – which is why political nerds like me are so utterly obsessed with it.

It’s also why Albo is constrained in taking action against any of the parties involved in the Kitching claims.

Think of it as a giant game of Jenga on the national stage. Remove one block and the whole tower could come crashing down.

Privately, Albo is by turn upset, furious and frustrated by the scandalisation – and in a sense he is right to be so.

He personally has no blood on his hands and the question mark over Kitching’s preselection is entirely a matter for the schismatic Victorian Right, not the Victorian Left, and certainly not the NSW Left over which he presides.

But politics is about perception and the perception in the community this past week has shifted from a Prime Minister who washes his hands of responsibility — “I don’t hold a hose” and “It’s not a race” — to an Opposition Leader accused of saying “There’s nothing to see here …”

And then of course there is the Coalition’s much touted “women problem”.

It’s a pretty massive boon for an opposition when a government is perceived as oppressing a minority which is in fact a majority.

These are arguably Labor’s two greatest strengths in the lead up to the election but the Kitching tragedy nobbles the party on both.

It looks like it is ducking the issue and looks like it has a women problem of its own. These are matters that Albanese will have to deal with, whether fair or not.

It is also his first real baptism of fire. If Albanese is to become the next prime minister he will inherit plenty of crises on the national and international stage.

He can hardly devote his energies to this if he has spot fires in his own backyard.

If Anthony Albanese can convince the avengers of Kimberley Kitching that her legacy will be honoured and her hard-headed pursuit of national security and steady-headed embrace of common sense will remain the spine of the ALP, then he might just save the day.

He may save Labor in the process.

Watch The Blame Game with Joe Hildebrand on Sky News at 8.30pm on Fridays