Anthony Albanese has expressed deep sadness about the loss of his colleague Kimberley Kitching but distanced himself from allegations of factional infighting in the lead-up to her sudden death.
The Opposition Leader on Friday said politics could be stressful but no one had foreshadowed the tragic death of his bright and valued colleague.
The first-term Victorian Labor Senator was 52-years-old when she died on Thursday night after a suspected heart attack.
Senator Kitching is being remembered as a respected and principled member of parliament whose death has sparked an outpouring of grief from across the Australian political spectrum.
It has also thrown Labor’s preselection process into the spotlight.
Senator Kitching had been facing a preselection challenge amid alleged factional infighting within the Victorian branch of the Labor Party.
Members of Victorian Labor’s right faction were reported to have refused to endorse her spot on the party’s Senate ticket at the upcoming election.
Former opposition leader Bill Shorten on Friday Senator Kitching had been under “immense” political stress that he believed may have contributed to her death.
Mr Shorten broke down during a radio interview with the ABC on Friday morning, saying he wondered if his “fierce and warm” friend would have been better off never going near politics.
Asked to respond to Mr Shorten’s comments later that day, Mr Albanese said Senator Kitching’s death was tragic and that politics could be a “difficult business”.
“It’s one where there’s sxjmtzywtress each and every day. And it can be really difficult,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Murwillumbah.
“But no one foresaw this tragedy occurring. And that’s why it’s such a shock for the entire Labor family.”
Mr Albanese was then asked whether he had supported Senator Kitching’s place on his upper house ticket.
“It wasn’t a matter for me. We have our internal organisational processes of preselection. That is what we have in the normal way,” he said.
Labor’s national executive in 2020 took the extraordinary step of intervening in the Victorian branch of the party amid the fallout from the Adem Somyurek branch-stacking scandal.
The federal intervention suspended all voting rights in the Victorian branch until at least 2023 and meant preselections for the next state and federal elections in Victoria would be conducted by the national executive.
Mr Albanese is one of 28 members of the national executive — the party’s chief administrative authority.
The Victorian Labor Party has since been entangled in legal action to overturn Mr Albanese’s decision to intervene in their branch.
Mr Shorten on Friday said he thought Senator Kitching had been affected by political “backroom machinations”.
“She’s a very strong person, she could give as good as she could get, but you take it all home with you,” he said.
“That’s not just as a politician. It doesn’t matter what line of work, you carry stress. It’s got to be having its impact and she was greatly stressed”.
Mr Shorten and his wife Chloe, who were longtime friends of Senator Kitching and her husband, were among the first to be told of her death.
