‘They all play hard’: what happened when Kimberley Kitching came to Canberra?

Bill Shorten used Kimberley Kitching’s funeral to urge the party to ‘channel their grief’ into winning the upcoming federal election. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

When Bill Shorten parachuted Kimberley Kitching into parliament in 2016, she was no darling of conservatives.

Kitching’s selection was derided by the then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, as a “captain’s call”. The Liberal senator Eric Abetz labelled her “unfit for public office” over adverse findings made by the Fair Work Commission and trade union royal commission.