Health Services Union looter and current General Manager Kimberley Kitching is now running for the Senate seat that will be vacated by Senator Feeney when the federal election is called. She is running under the banner “Kimberley Kitching for Senate movement” which has the support of Bill Shorten, Australian Workers Union (AWU) and surprisingly Andrew Bolt which he announced on his show, The Bolt Report, last Sunday.
I sent some questions to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during the week and had a text message from Kimberley Kitching’s husband Andrew Landeryou after publishing last week’s post which I will discuss later in this post.
The Kimberley Kitching matter is important for at least two reasons. Firstly we have a situation where Ms Kitching is clearly involved in ripping of the HSU and trying to enter federal parliament while a current federal politician, Craig Thomson, is facing criminal charges for ripping off the HSU when he worked there prior to entering parliament in 2007. Does the Labor Party never learn?
Secondly, the return of corruption at the HSU almost immediately after it was meant to be cleaned up which was overseen by federal MP Bill Shorten. It is Mr Shorten who is backing Kimberley Kitching’s push for the Senate seat which really shows what contempt Mr Shorten has for the Australian public and the Labor Party.
Background
I will only briefly touch on the background as this is a follow-up post from my previous post titled “Bill Shorten tried to stab Julia Gillard in the back one last time. Return of corruption at the HSU” (Click here to read the post)
There was massive fraud and theft at the Health Services Union and an administrator was appointed. New elections were called. Kimberley Kitching and her husband Andrew Landeryou supported Diane Asmar to be elected as the Secretary of the HSU Victoria No 1 Branch. Mr Landeryou also used his website/blog, Vexnews, to support Mrs Asmar and attack her competitors.
Not long after winning the election in December 2012 Diane Asmar appointed Kimberly Kitching as the General Manager which is clear and blatant cronyism. Cronyism is defined on Wikipedia as “Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications.” Ms Kitching has no qualifications or experience in running a union but is a friend of Mrs Asmar.
Kimberley Kitching ran for Labor Party preselection in the seat of Gellibrand in April which she lost or some have reported she withdrew at the last-minute but it did go to a vote. She than announced on the 12/7/13 her nomination for Labor Party preselection for Julia Gillard’s seat of Lalor then withdrew the same day.
Last Sunday 14/7/13 Andrew Bolt in effect announced that Kimberley Kitching was running for the Senate as he stated that he was part of the “Kimberley Kitching for Senate Movement”. The Senate seat will become vacant when Senator Feeney resigns once the election date is set to contest the lower house seat of Batman. Watch the video below which is only 20 seconds long (right-click anywhere on the video). The look on Ms Kitching’s face seems to say to Mr Bolt “I wish you never said that”
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Why someone like Andrew Bolt, who is very critical of the Labor government, would get involved in supporting Kimberley Kitching is very odd. What I can say that if Ms Kitching does win the Senate spot then anyone who has supported her will have their reputations trashed. In all fairness I did not know who Ms Kitching was or her background until last week and maybe Andrew Bolt does not know her background either. But just the fact she is the General Manager for the HSU should have sent the alarm bells ringing.
Kimberley Kitching has other support as well such as federal MP Michael Danby who said on his website last week “I have known Kimberley Kitching since she moved to Melbourne nearly 20 years ago.” and “Now she is a union official, as part of the team who successfully won the battle to clean up the corrupt Health Services Union”. (Click here to read more) Obviously Mr Danby does not care about his own reputation.
“Kimberley Kitching for Senate movement”
It is worth looking at the time line in Ms Kitching’s tilt for parliament.
April 2013 – Ran for preselection for the seat of Gellibrand – Either lost or pulled out at the last-minute
Friday – 12th July 2013 – Announced she would run for preselection in Julia Gillard’s seat of Lalor. (Click here to read)
Friday – 12th July 2013 – Only a matter of hours after announcing that she will run for preselection in Lalor she withdraws and tweets on Twitter “After carefully considering my friend Kevin Rudd’s and the former PM’s wishes, I’ve decided to support educator Joanne Ryan in Lalor. — Kimberley Kitching (@kimbakit) July 12, 2013“ (Click here to read more)
I have to wonder why she nominated for Lalor in the first place. She had to of known prior to nominating that Prime Minister Rudd and Julia Gillard did not want her nominate. I suspect maybe she did so to force them to support her tilt for the Senate seat as payback for her withdrawing from the Lalor preselection.
Saturday – 13th July 2013 – Late that night I publish my post titled “Bill Shorten tried to stab Julia Gillard in the back one last time. Return of corruption at the HSU” where I write about Kimberley Kitching and why she should not be in parliament and her involvement in corruption at the HSU.
Sunday – 14th July 2013 – 8.46am – I receive a text message from Andrew Landeryou saying “Can we catch up for a coffee some time this week? Andrew” I phoned him and said that I was in Sydney and he is in Melbourne. He said he often comes to Sydney and what about Thursday, Friday or Saturday. I said that I work full-time and run this site in my spare-time and do not have time. He said “I tried” and left it at that.
I never do the coffee routine as I think it is a time waster and if he had anything to say he could say it on the phone. At that point I did not know about the Senate push but he did. Andrew knows the power of blogs as he has run a number of them and so do politicians. While this site is not the biggest on the net, it is big enough to spark a fire so to speak with other media which it has done in the past and this would have worried Andrew and Kimberley.
Sunday – 14th July 2013 – Kimberley Kitching is on The Bolt Report as per the above video and Andrew Bolt says “I am part of the Kimberley Kitching for senate campaign” which lets the cat out of the bag.
KCA questions to Kevin Rudd
Below is the email that I sent to the Prime Minister’s media department and the response that I received. (I have deleted the email addresses so they do not get spammed)
From: Shane Dowling
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 10:38 AM
To: #########
Subject: Media Request – Shane Dowling – Kangaroo Court of Australia
Dear Sir/Madam
I have a couple of questions for Prime Minister Rudd for a post that I will publish in the near future.
The background to the questions is:
Labor Party member Kimberley Kitching announced her nomination for the seat of Lalor on Friday the 12th of July then only a matter of hours later withdrew her nomination and tweeted on twitter: “After carefully considering my friend Kevin Rudd’s and the former PM’s wishes, I’ve decided to support educator Joanne Ryan in Lalor. — Kimberley Kitching (@kimbakit) July 12, 2013”
The questions are:
- Did Prime Minister Rudd talk to Kimberley Kitching directly and ask her to withdraw her nomination for the seat of Lalor?
- If Prime Minister Rudd did not talk to Kimberley Kitching directly, then how did he communicate his wish that Ms Kitching withdraw from the preselection contest for Lalor as she says in her tweet?
- Did Prime Minister Rudd do a deal with Kimberley Kitching that if she withdraws from the Lalor preselection contest then Mr Rudd would support her to replace Senator David Feeney?
- Does Prime Minister Rudd support the “Kimberley Kitching for senate movement”?
- Kimberley Kitching was appointed by Diana Asmar as the General Manager of the Health Services Union Victorian No.1 branch after Ms Kitching’s husband, Andrew Landeryou, used his blog Vexnews to support Mrs Asmar in the union election. This is clear cronyism. Does the Prime Minister plan to investigate further and/or take any action?
- Is Kimberley Kitching a personal friend of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as she seems to suggest in her tweet?
Regards
Shane Dowling
The Response:
From: ##########
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 11:52 AM
To: shanedowling
Subject: RE: Media Request – Shane Dowling – Kangaroo Court of Australia [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Hi Shane,
Thanks for your email. It is well-known in the party that Mr Rudd felt that Ms Gillard’s views should be respected as a former prime minister and leader of the Labor Party.
Regards
The response did not answer the questions which is typical of politicians. So the question still has to be asked, does he support Kimberly Kitching and her Senate bid? I could have sent a follow-up email reinforcing the questions or asking new questions but thought I would save that battle for another day and another matter. In all fairness to Mr Rudd he has only been back in the job a couple of weeks and cannot take responsibility for what has happened at the HSU and Kimberley Kitching. But moving forward he will have to take responsibility whether he likes it or not. If Kimberley Kitching does become a Senator then that will impact on the Labor Party and Mr Rudd is the one who will be getting asked questions by journalists about the scandal.
One of many other questions that need to asked is how much of HSU funds are being spent to have Ms Kitching elected to parliament? I will follow-up on the above and previous post whether of not Kimberley Kitching is appointed as a Senator as there is enough corruption involved to write a book and much more to the story.
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Categories: Bill Shorten, Kevin Rudd
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It seems like you have a lot to learn about the underbelly of Victorian politics.
The Labor Unity crime syndicate has close links to people like Kroger and Bolt. Bolt himself admitted that he was a friend of Conroy’s after supporting his proposed internet filter.
Any time you see Kroger on Lateline on Friday night, he will be engaged in some kind of phoney debate with one of his Labor Unity mates like Howes or Dastaryi. The ABC have turned a blind eye to the criminality of the ALP Right and continue to kiss the feet of the likes of Graham Richardson to this day.
Shorten and Conroy have received a great deal of financial support from the likes of the Pratt family to fund their nefarious branch stacking and union election buying campaigns. The Pratt family pay a bikie gang a retainer for debt collection and scaring opponents as reported by the Herald Sun.
Landeryou has been up to his eyeballs in criminal activity on behalf on the Shortcon team for the last 15 years. His specialty was to take over unions on behalf of Shorten using dodgy slush funds like how Cesar Melhams million dollar Industry 2020 fund was used to take over the HSU. His fraudulent activity when president of the Melbourne Uni Student Union involving millions of misappropriated dollars was just the start of a pattern he repeated at two subsequent unions. His father, a Victorian ALP politician, was one of the dodgiest ever to grace Spring St and taught his son well.
Even by the low standards of the ALP, Andrew’s criminal history means that he is unable to get his mate Bill to help him get his snout into Club Fed so he has to use his patsy wife to ensure that he gets his multi million dollar parliamentary pension as payoff for doing so much dirty work for Bill and Stephen over the years.
One could fill a book with the criminal exploits of the Labor Unity crooks.
These people belong in prison, not Parliament.
Problem Reaction Solution. While the Labor Party and Unions of today remain in power they will control the solution to the problems they create. We have only contro over our reaction. This changing though slowly and will take along time if people are willing to battle it out with these scumbags
Unfortunately Bolt is a Labor tragic. He thought Gillard was great when he first met her, even says so on his site today, thinks Kristina Keneally is great, and now Kitching. (Moderator: Part deleted as off topic)
Does Rudd support her too? Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, she is a perfect fit as a union backed flibbertygibit able to pull the wool over the eyes of the “true believers.”
(Moderator: Part deleted as off topic) Andrew Bolt has been consistent in his longstanding critique of the HSU and it would be very difficult to take a sustainable position on policy backflips in the current climate.
As for Kitching and the broader HSU, I suggest Rudd will keep well away and take no responsibility for any of it. Indeed if he has any sense at all he will call an election this week and all the periferal detritus will be forgotten in the rush to secure the swinging vote.
The post is not about Andrew Bolt. Please keep on topic.
Shane
You write: The look on Ms Kitching’s face seems to say to Mr Bolt “I wish you never said that”
My interpretation when watching the show was that Andrew was being facetious and that Kimberley didn’t care for the joke.
It does seem true that Labor never learns, most notably with matters related to the HSU and other unions. The airbrush seems to be working for Rudd right now but the big question is can they airbrush away all the historical detritus and we don’t need to elaborate on that!
The machinations of the unions in the matter of getting their people in parliament are totally unacceptable to me.
These people come from school and university, in which they are already brainwashed towards the left. I have experienced this myself, so i have seen it with my own eyes.
Then they work for a union and are appointed as general Mamager. It is no wonder that these Unions are rorted and whatever else goes on, as they have no knowledge on how to run a business, they have no knowledge or practice in running anything.
Then we get these people on the front-bench and in The Senate (the House of Review)
They all know what will be discussed on the day and they get a bit of paper from the Party, which they learn by heart and recite in Parliament.
It is an absolute disgrace, they are not there for the constituents, only for what they can get out of the tax-payer, the more committee’s they sit on, the more they get paid and after they retire, they are set for life, not by hard work or knowledge, no only because they have been given the opportunity to get ‘the job’.
All this to the detriment of the country.
Your right about the body gesture. It was a ‘WTF you have to say that for’
For the labor party to even consider this serious fraudster Kimberley Kitching a senate seat is disgraceful. The labor party will surely never learn how to endorse the honest people as candidates. Instead they always choose the most grubby of candidates like Ms Kitching to serve the labor brand. No wonder the labor party is so toxic right now, a leopard never changes their spots. Ms Kitching is lucky she’s not in jail for all the serious crimes she has done.
No mention of David Asmar, husband of Diane, who is Conroy’s chief branch stacker? Or the ombudsmans report into Darebin council corruption when Diane was Mayor?
Or the friendship between Kimberley and Shorten’s ex-wife Debbie Beale, daughter of wealthy ex-Liberal politician Julian Beale?
All relevant
Some of that was raised in the previous post which is here: http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2013/07/14/bill-shorten-tried-to-stab-julia-gillard-in-the-back-one-last-time-return-of-corruption-at-the-hsu/
Shane, I have noticed during the last eighteen months,(that is how long I have been on the case!) that it is almost like incest and therefore the nepotism.
Because all these women keep their own name, one never suspects this, I suppose for normal people there seems ot be no need to do this.
I find it sickening, once you pick up who is who.
Looks like Kimberley Kitching has lost her push for the Senate. This report just in from the Financial Review:
Labor factional shake-up a blow to Shorten
A factional deal between Senator Stephen Conroy and the Victorian Left faction that weakens Bill Shorten’s influence will deliver key Labor seats to Geoff Lake and Mehmet Tillem.
And:
The Right Faction is now in flux and a new power structure involving unions aligned with Senator Conroy – primarily the Shop Assistant’s union and the National Union of Workers – appears to have seized control of the Labor Unity faction previously led by Senator Conroy and Mr Shorten
The AWU had demanded that the Left support its candidate for Hotham, Rosemary Barker, and Senate candidate Kimberley Kitching, who were Mr Shorten’s preferred candidates.
Mr Tillem beat Ms Kitching by 37 votes to 25, with the Socialist Left abstaining as predicted
Click here to read more: http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_factional_shake_up_blow_to_ePUBVzXp53iEjkHAfLj4MK