Kimberley Kitching’s written plea on Labor’s ‘campaign of bullying’

Kimberley Kitching demanded an end to bullying in a letter penned after she was dumped from Labor’s tactics committee.

Kimberley Kitching. Picture: AAP

Senator Kimberley Kitching wrote about the need to stop bullying and make parliament a safer workplace in a letter penned after she was hauled into Kristina ­Keneally’s office and dumped from Labor’s tactics committee. In the letter, Kitching – who died of a suspected heart attack on March 10 – said the Labor caucus should reflect on the difference ­between the “entirely normal contest of political rivals or rival ideas and what could reasonably be characterised as a campaign of bullying”.

“Standards in workplaces have changed and we should all think about the application of those standards to ensure a safe workplace for everyone here,” she wrote.

She finalised the seven-page letter and printed it out to deliver by hand to Senator Keneally – deputy leader of the opposition in the Senate – on June 21, 2021.

Kitching had been hauled into a closed-door meeting the week before with Keneally where she was wrongly accused of disloyalty and siding with Liberal minister Linda Rey­nolds over the Brittany Higgins allegations. Instead of ­delivering the document, Kitching chose to have a one-on-one meeting with Richard Marles to present her case as outlined in her letter.

That meeting took place the next day, June 22, at 3.30pm in his office. “She felt Richard was the most senior person in the leadership group and in the Right (faction) who could protect her from this,” a source close to her told The Weekend Australian.

Kitching raised with Marles how she was being frozen out by the Senate leadership team and spoke about being unfairly dumped from the tactics committee – a senior group that meets daily to decide on question time strategy.

Marles has come under pressure this week over what ­action he took – if any – after Kitching raised her concerns with him, as first ­revealed by The Australian on Wednesday. Marles has refused to address the questions, citing ­respect for Kitching and her family ahead of her funeral on Monday. Kitching’s letter has been provided to The Weekend Australian by those close to her after a week in which senior Labor figures sought to dismiss any suggestion she was subject to unfair treatment by Penny Wong and Keneally. Friends say Kitching was subject to a pattern of hostile behaviour by senior Labor figures that resulted in her being frozen out and ostracised. Wong on Friday said she apologised to Senator Kitching after saying during a heated meeting that she wouldn’t understand the climate change emergency ­because she didn’t have children. Kitching had been unable to have children.

Kitching’s letter provided a detailed rebuttal to claims she warned Reynolds, the then defence minister, about the Higgins affair.

In the letter, she wrote that there was “obviously, generally, a fine line between the entirely normal contest of political rivals or rival ideas and what could be reasonably characterised as a campaign of bullying.

“That’s something I think all senators should reflect on, within our caucus and beyond it.

“Standards in workplaces have changed and we should all think about the application of those standards to ensure a safe workplace for everyone here.”

Kitching calls for a “fair, transparent process” for dealing with matters like hers and says it should be a matter of discussion at Labor caucus.

“While Senator Reynolds’ claims are easily dispensed with, as I have demonstrated, that might not always be the case in these situations, so a fair, transparent process for dealing with these matters is probably welcome and prudent,” she wrote.

“Outlining how you think this might work going forward might be usefully discussed at a Senate caucus meeting.”

Kitching noted that she frequently heard “lurid things” Wong had said about her and others.

In the context of disputing the credibility of Reynolds’ claims that Kitching had pre-warned her about the Higgins saga, Kitching writes that there are often scurrilous rumours that turn out to be lies. “Obviously enough, if we were to accept as fact every claim made about us by Liberals, there would be no-one left in the caucus,” she wrote.

“Senator Wong, in particular, given her leadership role, is frequently targeted by Liberals with claims that she has said all manner of lurid things about colleagues, including me, for example.” The case Kitching outlines in her letter makes it clear she was unfairly punished for the spurious allegation that she warned Reynolds two weeks ahead of time that the Higgins story was about to land and that Wong would target the Liberal minister over it.

“Simply put, it is not possible to divulge information to anyone about a matter of which I had no knowledge,” Kitching wrote. “I had never heard of Ms Brittany Higgins or Senator Reynolds’ involvement in her story until it was first reported on 15 February 2021 on news.com.au

“Moreover, it is not possible to divulge a secret plan which did not actually exist. It has not been Senator Wong’s practice to ­divulge her secret plans, if she ever has any, to me.

“I am not in the habit of confiding with Senator Wong either. In any event, Senator Wong has rebutted any delusional claim that there was any secret plan.

“There was no discussion of it at Senate tactics or, to the best of my knowledge, by any Labor person. We just didn’t know.”

Kitching felt a sense of injustice at being punished for a warning she said would have been impossible for her to give.

Sources close to Kitching felt the reason was used – or “weaponised” – against her by Labor’s Senate leadership team.

Kitching and some of her supporters referred to the three women – Katy Gallagher, Keneally and Wong – as “the mean girls”. Kitching wrote in her letter, “the suggestion Labor knew about these matters – as they related to Senator Reynolds – weeks in advance is not credible”.

Reynolds had claimed that Kitching warned her the Higgins scandal was going to blow-up two weeks before it hit the news.

At an estimates hearing on June 4, 2021, under heated questioning from Wong and Gallagher, Reynolds said: “I know where this started.”

Both Wong and Gallagher questioned Reynolds over what she meant and Reynolds replied: “I really don’t think we should be doing this here, but if you want me to do that …” to which Wong replied “Yes”.

Reynolds said: “I was told by one of your senators two weeks before about what you were intending to do with the story in my office. Two weeks before.”

Both Wong and Gallagher strongly denied having any foreknowledge of the Higgins matter.

“No one had any knowledge. How dare you? It’s all about protecting yourself,” Gallagher said.

The hearing was then suspended for a “private meeting” where the discussion continued.

The discussion during the dinner break moved to Social Services Minister Anne Ruston’s office. The meeting was attended by Wong, Gallagher, Reynolds and Ruston.

During the meeting, Reynolds elaborated on her claim that Kitching had warned her about their attack on the first sitting day of the parliamentary year in February 2021.

As supposed proof, Reynolds showed them text correspondence between her and Kitching.

Reynolds had sent a message over the confidential communication app called Signal to Kitching in May 2021 in which she claimed Kitching had warned her about “what Penny was about to unleash”.

At the time, Kitching was aggressively questioning Reynolds in estimates about who was funding her private legal expenses for the defamation case brought on by Higgins.

In her letter, Kitching said Reynolds sent her text messages on May 25, 2021, that indicated she was angry about this line of questioning.

This Signal message that referred to the forewarning was the first Signal message Reynolds had ever sent Kitching.

“I didn’t and still don’t understand what on earth she was talking about,” Kitching wrote in her letter. “At the time I received the message, I assume her distress was getting the better of her and thought it best to ignore it.”

Kitching wrote that “the ­closest thing that resembles the discussion she claims to have had was a quick chat in the chamber we had on 16 February 2021 or 17 February 2021, which I remember because it was my birthday or the day after, where I urged her to ‘be careful’ and to ‘take care’ which was me referencing what I ­anticipated the Prime Minister would do to her after some very bad question time performances and extensive reporting around Peter Dutton being interested in becoming defence minister.”“Senator Reynolds was in tears and in a great deal of distress at the time and I felt genuinely sorry for her.

“I had had extensive dealings with her as Defence Minister and had always found her helpful in getting us the information Labor sought and I feared a new Minister right be less co-operative.”

Labor Leader Anthony Albanese has denied that there is a culture problem within the Labor Party or that Kitching was subject to any bullying.

Instead, in an interview on Adelaide radio station on Friday, he suggested that Wong, Keneally and Gallagher were being targeted.

Asked about Kitching and if he thought there was a bullying culture within the ALP, Mr Albanese responded: “No I don’t. And I think that the people who’ve been targeted here, Penny Wong, Kristina Keneally and Katy Gallagher, are people I’m very proud to have as part of my team.”

He said it was “unfortunate” that Kitching’s death had been “politicised.”

Mr Albanese demoted Kitching from her role as assistant spokeswoman for government accountability in February 2021 despite the fact she had successfully exposed the bonus gifts of Cartier watches at Australia Post.

Kitching only learnt about her demotion from media reports and was not given the courtesy of being told ahead of time.

When she received international recognition with the Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Award in November 2021, the Labor Party refused to pay for her economy flight to London.

Kitching’s political future was also under threat before she passed away. Her Senate preselection had not yet been confirmed.

Despite the many challenges she faced inside the Labor Party, Kitching’s friends say she would not like to be remembered as a victim.

She has been most commonly described by friends as a warrior, a patriot and a conviction politician who made her mark in Australia and on the global stage.

Her legacy will be remembered at her funeral in Melbourne on Monday.