The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has taken a swing at Rupert Murdoch’s national broadsheet the Australian, declaring it is “extraordinarily disrespectful” to use the appellation “mean girls” to describe “strong, articulate, principled women” like Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher and Kristina Keneally.
The blast followed the publication on Wednesday of an article chronicling alleged internal disagreements between members of Labor’s Senate team and the late senator Kimberley Kitching, who died suddenly of a heart attack last week at the age of 52. The article claimed the disagreements left Kitching feeling isolated.
The news story was headlined: “How Labor’s ‘mean girls’ ostracised Kimberley Kitching”. It appears to attribute the “mean girls” reference either to Kitching directly, or one of her friends. Wednesday’s report asserts that Kitching “and some of her supporters” referred to Gallagher, Keneally and Wong as “the mean girls”.
Albanese told journalists in Brisbane he found it “astonishing” and a decades-long “throwback” that a sexist description would be deployed in 2022 to describe female frontbenchers.
The federal opposition leader noted he was campaigning in Queensland on Wednesday with colleagues Ed Husic and Anthony Chisholm and “we have never been described as mean boys, and people should think about that”.
Albanese said on Wednesday his colleagues were still mourning Kitching’s “tragic loss.”
“It was sudden,” he said. “It was not expected. Her funeral isn’t until Monday. Can people be a bit respectful at this point in time?”
Asked whether there was cause to investigate whether or not the Labor party had a “mean girls” culture, Albanese said: “Seriously, have a bit of respect. The funeral is on Monday”.
Kitching – a player in Labor’s Victorian right faction, and a long time friend and factional ally of Labor’s former leader, Bill Shorten – was facing a battle to secure preselection to remain in the Senate at the coming election.
Because of an extraordinary federal intervention in the Victorian branch of the Labor party, triggered by a significant branch stacking scandal, preselections in the state were being determined by the national executive.
Speaking after Kitching’s death, Shorten said the senator had been under considerable stress. “I’m not a coroner, I can’t tell you why this woman at 52 was taken from us, but I have no doubt the stress of politics and the machinations in the back rooms had its toll,” he said last week.
“She’s a very strong person. She could give as good as she could get. But you take it all home with you, don’t you? Stress is like invisible coats of paint. It’s got to be having its impact. And she was greatly stressed.”
Wong, Keneally and Gallagher are all significant supporters of Albanese. Albanese said on Wednesday Kitching was “someone who I had respect for”.
He said he had appointed her as an assistant shadow minister, assisting Shorten in the shadow portfolio of disabilities. “She worked closely with Bill and I thought that was entirely appropriate”.
Wong, Labor’s Senate leader, told journalists: “Senator Kitching has passed away and that was tragic and shocking and many in the Labor family are grieving and her loved ones are grieving”.
“I am simply not going to engage in commentary about some of the allegations which have been raised and even if I and others disagree with them”.
Gallagher told the ABC: “Many of the assertions in that article are not true from my point of view, but I don’t think it is respectful for us to enter into commentary or disagreements about particular aspects of [the story] at this point in time”.
Campaigning in Perth, Scott Morrison told reporters Kitching was “unique” and a “true patriot” who had forged many friendships with Liberal colleagues in the pursuit of her policy interests in foreign affairs, defence and intelligence.
Morrison said he was not in a position to confirm the report in The Australian, but he said he expected Albanese to take any claims of internal strong-arming “seriously”.
