Key Bill Shorten ally Kimberley Kitching will replace retiring Labor powerbroker Stephen Conroy in the Senate but the development has caused internal consternation within the Victorian ALP.
Several senior figures over the past few days have attempted to warn the federal Labor leader off backing Kitching – a lawyer, who is married to Andrew Landeryou, formerly a combative political blogger.
But several sources have confirmed to Guardian Australia that Shorten dug in behind her candidacy, which was only unveiled publicly on Thursday.
One senior Labor figure told Guardian Australia on Thursday evening: “This is Bill’s first big mistake, and this one is a six-year mistake.”
Conroy’s abrupt departure from politics in mid-September triggered a vacuum in the Victorian right faction.
Infighting about his replacement in the Senate has been thundering behind the scenes for days as various sub-factional groupings within the Victorian right have faced off over the the nominations.
Richard Marles, a close ally of Shorten’s, and a figure the Victorian right was hoping would move into Conroy’s institutional role as factional fixer, was backing lawyer Diana Taylor for Conroy’s spot.
Kitching prevailed in part because the National Union of Workers bloc refused to participate in Thursday night’s proceedings.
Colleagues say Shorten’s defiance in the face of advice from close colleagues is partly personal, Kitching is a long-time friend of the opposition leader, and partly a power play, because she can deliver numbers from the Health Services Union.
But colleagues are predicting her arrival on the federal scene will cause disruption both in Victoria and in the federal Labor caucus in Canberra.
Some are even questioning whether this development will upset a longstanding stability pact between the left and right factions in Victoria.
The trade union royal commission in 2014 made adverse findings about Kitching and referred her for possible prosecution.
In its interim report commissioner Dyson Heydon concluded that, in early 2013, when Kitching was HSU No 1 branch general manager, she sat the right-of-entry tests “on behalf of one or more of” seven officials, including secretary Diana Asmar.
Heydon recommended the commonwealth director of public prosecutions consider prosecuting Asmar and five others for making false statements about the tests, and Kitching for aiding and abetting those contraventions.
