20 Facts About Kimberley Kitching

Kimberley Jane Elizabeth Kitching was an Australian politician, lawyer, and trade unionist.

Kimberley Kitching grew up in the suburb of St Lucia, where she was a childhood friend of Chloe Shorten.

Kimberley Kitching's father was a chemistry professor and during her youth the family spent time in England, Spain, France, Germany, and the United States as her father received academic postings.

Kimberley Kitching was admitted as a solicitor by the Supreme Court of Queensland.

From December 2012, Kimberley Kitching worked as the General Manager of the Victorian No 1 Branch of the Health Services Union, leaving after a few years.

In 2015 a vice president of the Fair Work Commission found that Kimberley Kitching had illegally completed testing on behalf of other union officials to gain right of entry permits.

Kimberley Kitching was involved in Victorian Labor politics for some time, including being vice-president of the party's Victorian Branch.

Kimberley Kitching was a Melbourne City Councillor in the early 2000s, and was a senior adviser to several ministries in the government of Labor premier Steve Bracks, as well as to John Lenders, the treasurer in the Brumby government.

Kimberley Kitching's bid was unsuccessful due to opposition from within the party, including from Stephen Conroy.

On 13 October 2016, Kimberley Kitching won pre-selection to fill the Victorian Senate seat vacated by Stephen Conroy's resignation on 30 September.

Kimberley Kitching's pre-selection was supported by her close friend, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, and by the Labor Right.

Shorten's support for Kimberley Kitching generated tension in the party with frontbencher and former Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refusing to support her pre-selection, and legal affairs spokesperson Mark Dreyfus threatening to resign from his position in the shadow cabinet, although he did not carry out the threat.

Kimberley Kitching was formally chosen as a replacement Senator by a joint sitting of the Parliament of Victoria on 25 October 2016, and sworn in on 7 November 2016.

Kimberley Kitching was made Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate.

In February 2022, one month before her death, Kimberley Kitching used parliamentary privilege to suggest to the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation that Chau Chak Wing was the wealthy businessman behind an alleged Chinese plot to interfere in Australian elections to install politicians sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party.

Kimberley Kitching had introduced a private member's bill in August 2021 before the government introduced its own bill in November 2021.

Kimberley Kitching was married to Andrew Landeryou, previously a well-known political blogger; her father-in-law Bill Landeryou was a state government minister in Victoria.

The couple separated due to financial difficulties in the mid-2000s, and Kimberley Kitching filed for bankruptcy in 2005, selling Wardlow to clear her debts; the bankruptcy was annulled in 2006.

Kimberley Kitching died from a suspected heart attack in the Melbourne suburb of Strathmore, on 10 March 2022, at the age of 52.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said Kimberley Kitching had made no official complaint about the matter, and said he would not hold an inquiry into the claims.