Andrew Bolt: Labor’s ‘Mean Girls’ have form

It’s not just Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching who Labor’s “Mean Girls” have (allegedly) bullied until her heart faltered.

Labor’s “Mean Girls” have form. It’s not just Labor senator Kimberley Kitching who they (allegedly) bullied until her heart faltered.

Have they forgotten another female politician who told them they’d put her in hospital?

Have they forgotten how two of them responded – with jeers, sneers and shouting?

Yes, I know one of those Mean Girls, Labor Senate leader Penny Wong, now wants us to shut up about their brutality.

On Sunday, the day before Kitching’s funeral, Wong protested: “Common decency … is demonstrated when someone has died and I would invite some of those making claims and sharing views to consider and reflect on whether or not they have demonstrated that.”

Well, Penny, I’ve indeed reflected. Kitching’s husband is my friend, and I’d hate to add to his terrible grief. So I’ve rung people close to Kimberley and not one asked me to stop holding you and Labor’s other Mean Girls – senators Katy Gallagher and Kristina Keneally – to account.

The opposite. We’re all furious, as was Kitching in the stressed days before she died of a suspected heart attack.

Kimberley Kitching and Penny Wong in 2016.

So let me take the Mean Girls back to last June, when they were furiously politicising the alleged sexual abuse of Brittany Higgins.

The accused man, a former Liberal staffer, denies that allegation, which is set to be tested in court in June, but the Mean Girls didn’t seem to care that they were threatening his chances of a fair trial.

They just wanted to smear the Morrison government as anti-women, and flew at minister Linda Reynolds, in whose office the alleged rape occurred after Higgins’ drunken night out.

Deeply stressed, Reynolds had to check into hospital after an existing heart condition worsened.

On her return, she gave evidence to a Senate committee that included Wong and Keneally. Read this transcript and know how these Mean Girls tick, even in front of cameras:

REYNOLDS (after heckling by Gallagher about dodging questions): Senator Gallagher, I did answer your questions to the point that you ground me into the ground and then I ended up in hospital. But I am back here and I am answering questions.

GALLAGHER AND WONG: (indistinct groans of exasperation).

GALLAGHER (arms crossed, voice raised): “You just alleged that we put you in hospital, that I put you in hospital, Senator Reynolds.

WONG: You should withdraw (that statement).

REYNOLDS: Well, if …

WONG (interrupting): So you’re the victim, not Miss Higgins, is that what …

REYNOLDS: Senator Wong …

GALLAGHER (shouting at Reynolds): Nobody takes pleasure in asking these questions …

WONG (voice raised): I’d like to respond to that.

REYNOLDS: I’m having two senators yelling at me at the same time.

Note: not the slightest sympathy. Just two Mean Girls going in harder.

Linda Reynolds had to check in to hospital after an existing heart condition worsened. Picture: Martin Ollman

No wonder Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins last year concluded in her report into the treatment of women in parliament that women were “more likely to bully” than men.

How Kimberley was bullied by Labor is now well documented. I won’t go into it all again, how she was marginalised, demoted, treated like a leper at MP gatherings, abused, denied Labor’s daily media talking points and then warned she’d be sacked – all for being too tough on China, too independent and too old-fashioned Labor Right, as well as supposedly warning Reynolds she’d be attacked (which she denied).

The Mean Girls deny the bullying claims, yet Wong admits she indeed once said to Kimberley, who couldn’t have children, one of the nastiest things one woman can say to another: that the reason Kimberley opposed Labor supporting the school climate strikes was that she didn’t have children and couldn’t understand them.

Wong says she apologised. Thing is, she admits she apologised only after the ABC reported that slur. It hadn’t occurred to her until then.

Nor did Wong say a word of support at the time for Liberal MP Nicolle Flint, who was stalked and bullied so viciously by the left that she’s quitting politics. Wong’s lame excuse: “People want me to comment on many things.”

When Wong, a Christian, first got into parliament she complained: “This country in recent times has been sadly lacking in compassion.”

That’s true. One reason is the savage tribal culture promoted by Twitter that’s now infected parts of Labor. My tribe good, your tribe evil.

So we get the Mean Girls, who’ll all be ministers in a Labor government that leader Anthony Albanese declares will “bring Australians together”.

Really? With the Mean Girls, or without?