If we are to understand Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese correctly, it is never an appropriate time to ask him to respond to reports that his Senate leadership team ostracised, marginalised, and bullied Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, 52, over a prolonged period that ended with her death this month from a suspected heart attack.
Doing so, he said on the weekend, would not be “constructive”. Trying to fob off questions last week, he said it would be “totally unbecoming” to comment on “who might have had a disagreement here or there”.
Yesterday he again refused to commission an inquiry into the allegations, even implying Kitching’s behaviour was the real issue. “She was somebody who engaged in politics and was passionate about her belief and from time to time that could produce some conflict,” he said.
This was the same Albanese who in March last year declared himself a champion of women’s safety while lambasting the Morrison government for its failings in that respect. “Women need to feel safe in every workplace and, indeed, every part of society,” he said at a doorstop conference. “And what we need to do is to make sure we listen to those concerns and respond.”
Great news: Albanese has finally responded. Although he will not initiate an investigation, he has announced he will lobby ALP National Secretary Paul Erickson to have the National Executive institute a ‘Kimberley Kitching Human Rights Award’. How good is that? The only way he could be any more feckless and maladroit would be if he asked one of the alleged perpetrators to present it.
This supposed honouring of Kitching is as unseemly an attempt at deflection as Albanese’s confected outrage. When Sharri Markson of this newspaper revealed Kitching and her supporters referred to senators Penny Wong, Kristina Keneally, and Katy Gallagher as “mean girls”, he spluttered that use of this term was “extraordinarily disrespectful” to the trio.
Having spent the last few years weaponising abuse allegations against their political opponents, senior Labor Party figures have discovered to their dismay it is being used against them – and on the eve of an election. “Parliament should be upholding the highest standards of employment,” tweeted Deputy Opposition Leader Richard Marles in February last year. “So long as there are women who feel that it’s not safe to work here, that is a terrible indictment on all in the workplace. “We need to hear from the Leaders of all political parties.”
But as with Albanese, Marles has developed a case of chronic reticence. Last week he reacted angrily when a journalist put to him: “It does seem to an observer that you might be using these eulogies to mask answering”. On Friday he refused to answer questions from Today show co-host Ally Langdon regarding whether Kitching had raised allegations of bullying with him, instead saying the party’s focus was on “honouring” her. Presumably Labor intends ‘honouring’ Kitching in this manner right up to the election and indefinitely after that.
So where does Tanya Plibersek – the shadow minister for women – stand on this? “I just don’t want to keep raking over this terrible loss and treating like it’s a political issue to manage,” she told Sky News last week.
“The sort of things we need to be focusing on now is talking to the Australian people about the things that matter to them.” She even implied the allegations were a non-issue. “Yesterday I was in Queensland,” she said, “(and) people weren’t asking whether there was bullying in the Labor Party”.
If hypocrisy were a portfolio, Plibersek would be a worthy holder. This was her in 2018 castigating the Coalition: “To have respected women on the opposite side talking about a toxic culture of bullying, and then having the now Prime Minister dismiss that and refuse to take it seriously, refuse to investigate, shows just how unfit this mob opposite is to govern.”
By her own words, she has tacitly admitted her party is unfit to hold office.
Wong, Keneally, and Gallagher have denied the allegations of bullying Kitching. Nonetheless it cannot be disputed the behaviour alleged would at the very least, if proved, constitute serious misconduct. No doubt they would correctly say in response they are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
But compare that to what each of them said last year concerning former attorney-general Christian Porter, when it was revealed a woman, now dead, had accused him of raping her in 1988 when he was 17. He has steadfastly denied that allegation.
Wong: “The reality is unless there is some form of investigation, some form of process that gives Australians confidence in the first law officer, these questions will continue. It is a matter for the Prime Minister. He is responsible for the membership of the Cabinet, and he is responsible for all of us, for ensuring Australians that everyone in that Cabinet is a fit and proper person for the office they hold.”
Keneally: “Are we all supposed to just pretend when Christian Porter comes back from leave that nothing has happened? We need to be clear that he is a fit and proper person to hold the position of attorney general, the first law officer of this country.” Given Keneally and Wong sit in the shadow cabinet, they must acknowledge this standard applies to them as well.
Gallagher: “At the moment we have the most senior legal officer in the land with these allegations swirling around, he’s gone on leave for some time … but these matters can’t be parked away because Christian Porter said they didn’t happen”.
Likewise, Gallagher cannot wish this affair away with a mere denial. By her professed principles, she must account for herself. Or would telling her that be mansplaining?
Given the impending election, the timing could not be worse for Labor, and its dilemma is obvious. It does not want to institute an inquiry, yet its refusal to do so will not just give the impression it is fearful of its findings. Stonewalling would reveal fully the Opposition’s mendacity and opportunism in attacking the government relentlessly for its shortfalls on providing a safe work environment for women. Who could forget Albanese’s proud declaration to Parliament a year ago tomorrow?
“I do want to pay tribute to … the shadow minister for women … the women in our caucus, who have shown incredible leadership and have come forward and worked so hard on developing a framework for the Labor Party of an updated code of conduct … a bullying policy and a complaints process,” he said. “That process also could be looked at in terms of being a model.”
A model, that is, for equivocation, obfuscation, and hypocrisy.
More Coverage
Risk that puberty blockers are a trap, not a release, for children
We need a national inquiry into the use of puberty blockers in children.
We need better tech to meet the threat of terrorism
All of the civil agencies who need to play a part in fighting the anti-Semitism and Islamophobic threat are not properly funded to undertake modernisation rapidly.