Kimberley Kitching was due to give the Fiona Richardson Memorial Lecture on 15 March.

In 2017 when Fiona died, I wrote that in the rough and tumble of politics, you sometimes form special friendships.

They are the people who stand with you, hurt with you, and help you fight against the attacks you frequently endure in public life.

I feel privileged because for me both Kimberley and Fiona were such people. Friendship, true deep friendship between men and women as respected equals, is rare in life but more so in politics.

I knew Kimberley as a fighter within the ranks of Labor. When the opportunity arose, I employed her as a senior adviser in my ministerial office. It was at a time when she had lost faith in public life. Her husband, Andrew Landeryou, told me since her passing how my act of faith in her rekindled her interest in politics.

I appointed her against a backdrop where she and Andrew were facing public and private challenges. Kimberley was a spark in my ministerial office. She set about improving Victoria’s IT capabilities and was just magic in helping develop our fashion industry to have a more multicultural outlook.

I and many others supported her in replacing Stephen Conroy as a senator. She set about fearlessly fighting for human rights and against authoritarianism which she saw as increasing in countries like China and Russia. She believed the West had a responsibility to hold to account those who assist such regimes, in gross violations of human rights, through severe sanctions.

She worked tirelessly to bring about legislation – popularly known as the Magnitsky legislation.

Magnitsky was a corruption fighter in Russia who was jailed and brutally beaten to death in custody.

It is this legislation that now allows Australia to sanction those assisting human rights abuses. Kimberley received the international Magnitsky human rights award.

Kimberley was not only my employee, she was my friend. She was a consummate politician who understood politics as a complex interplay of strategy, motivation, loyalty, and principle.

Kimberley stood by my side when I was forced to resign as a minister. She, like Fiona, helped me to overcome enormous challenges by reminding me I should not let others redefine me.

To Kimberley’s husband Andrew and her family, deep condolences. It is now left to us to fight human rights abuses she fervently fought against.

Theo Theophanous is a political commentator and former Labor minister.