Kimberley Kitching was warned Penny Wong wanted to boot her from key ALP committee

Senior Labor figures warned Kimberley Kitching that Penny Wong wanted to remove her from the party’s tactics committee 18 months before she was dumped.

Don Farrell, left, Kimberley Kitching and Penny Wong in the Senate Chamber in Federal Parliament, Canberra, in 2016. Picture: Ray Strange.

Senior Labor figures warned Kimberley Kitching that Penny Wong wanted to remove her from the party’s tactics committee 18 months before she was dumped on accusations of leaking to the Morrison government.

In the Labor strategy meetings that Kitching did attend last year, she was ostracised, barely acknowledged and, in one meeting, she confided in her husband and colleagues that Labor senator Katy Gallagher had turned her back on her while she was speaking.

Kitching kept a record of a conversation she had with Labor faction leader Don Farrell on November 12, 2019, when he informed her Senator Wong had ­advised him she might remove Kitching from tactics – a senior group that meets daily to decide on question time strategy.

Kitching said she would go “berserk” if she was dumped from the senior Labor group and he replied he “won’t let it happen”.

He told Kitching he had spoken to Wong a day earlier.

The record of the conversation has been obtained by The Australian after Labor sought to dismiss calls for an inquiry into Kitching’s treatment and justify her removal from Labor’s tactics committee by claiming she had leaked to former defence minister Linda Reynolds about the Brittany Higgins saga.

On Sunday, Senator Farrell would not confirm or deny his conversations with Kitching.

“It’s the condolence for Kimberley in the Senate (on Monday) and I don’t wish to add to the public discussion about her passing beyond my brief public comments,” Senator Farrell said.

The move to dump Kitching from tactics as early as November 11, 2019, came after the ABC published a report stating a senior Labor figure had accused Kitching of failing to understand the climate emergency because she did not have children.

While the ABC report did not name Senator Wong, it is understood Labor’s Senate Leader was furious the remark was leaked to the media – and Kitching was blamed for it.

Kitching did not leak the remark, according to sources close to her, who said she even asked the journalist to keep Wong’s name out of the story when he contacted her for comment.

The fact she had been unable to have children was a private pain that she did not want broadcast to the world.

After The Australian reported earlier this month how the comment had hurt Kitching, Senator Wong claimed she had apologised to Kitching at the time – an apology that Kitching’s friends and family do not recall her ever mentioning.

Kitching’s friends and family do recall that shortly after this story was published, she faced a backlash from senior Labor figures who accused her of leaking.

The warning from Senator Farrell came 11 days later.

One of Kitching’s confidantes said in effect she, the victim, was being punished for something that was done to her by Senator Wong.

“She was punishing Kimberley for something she had done,” the source said.

The push to oust Kitching from tactics didn’t end there.

When Covid-19 hit several months later and the Victorian lockdowns meant Kitching was unable to travel to Canberra, Wong ruled that the Senate tactics meetings could not be conducted over teleconferencing.

“So Kimberley wouldn’t be able to participate in that way,” a source close to her said.

One Labor figure told Kitching this was for “national security reasons”.

Kitching is understood to have raised this issue with deputy Labor leader Richard Marles and they spoke about how teleconferencing was being used for House of Representatives tactics committee meetings.

The Australian understands the rule was altered months later when lockdowns in South Australia prevented travel for its ­citizens to Canberra, and Senator Wong herself was directly ­affected.

In one tactics meeting that Kitching did attend in 2021, she told her husband and colleagues that Senator Gallagher had turned her back on her.

It was part of a pattern of hostile behaviour towards Kitching that Health Workers Union secretary Diana Asmar said she had witnessed.

“Isolation at Labor caucus meetings where her colleagues refused to greet or even acknowledge her was an ongoing issue,” Ms Asmar told the Herald Sun.

“Despite being the fourth-most senior Labor figure in the Senate as deputy leader of opposition business, the three more senior “mean girls” had limited discussion and interaction with her on any opposition business whatsoever.

“She was locked out of the ­discussions.”

Senator Gallagher did not respond to The Australian’s request for comment but told Sky News on Sunday that she did not ­deserve the “mean girl” tag and denied ever having “harsh words” or “difficult agreements” with Kitching.

Senator Wong declined to respond to questions from The Australian regarding her conver­sation with Senator Farrell, her attempts to remove Kitching from tactics over an 18-month ­period and the rules around teleconferencing.

Kitching was eventually dumped from tactics in June 2021 after Liberal Senator Reynolds told senators Wong and Gallagher that Kitching had given her a heads-up about Ms Higgins’s ­allegations two weeks in advance, as detailed in The Australian on March 19.

Kitching strongly denied this, explaining it was impossible to tell Senator Reynolds about a matter which she and Labor had no knowledge of.

Sources close to Kitching felt Senator Reynolds’s spurious claim was used – or “weaponised” – against her by Labor’s Senate leadership team.

“Linda Reynolds gave them a trigger,” one source said.