LIB 5.5% vs GRN
Incumbent MP
Josh Frydenberg, since 2010.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Kooyong covers most of the Boroondara council area and a strip of the Whitehorse council area, including the suburbs of Hawthorn, Kew, Camberwell, Canterbury, Mont Albert, Surrey Hills and Balwyn.
Redistribution
Kooyong expanded slightly to the south-east, taking in small areas from Chisholm and Higgins. These changes reduced the Liberal margin from 5.7% to 5.5%.
Kooyong is an original federation electorate, and has always been held by conservative parties, by the Free Trade Party for the first eight years and by the Liberal Party and its predecessors since 1909. It was held from 1922 to 1994 by only three men, all of whom led the major conservative force in federal politics.
The seat was first won in 1901 by Free Trader William Knox. He was re-elected in 1903 and 1906 and became a part of the unified Liberal Party in 1909. He won re-election in 1910 but retired later that year after suffering a stroke.
The 1910 by-election was won by Liberal candidate Robert Best. Best had previously served as a colonial minister and a Protectionist Senator from 1901 to the 1910 election, when he lost his seat in the ALP’s majority victory, and had served as a minister in Alfred Deakin’s second and third governments. Best returned to Parliament, but didn’t serve in Joseph Cook’s Liberal government or Billy Hughes’ Nationalist government.
At the 1922 election, Best was challenged by lawyer John Latham, who stood for the breakaway Liberal Union, a conservative party running to personally oppose Billy Hughes’ leadership of the Nationalist Party. Despite winning the most primary votes by a large margin, Best lost to Latham on Labor preferences.
John Latham was elected as one of five MPs for the breakaway Liberal Party (two of whom had previously been Nationalist MPs and retained their seats as Liberals in 1922). The Nationalists lost their majority due to gains for the Liberal Party and Country Party, and were forced to go into coalition, and the Country Party demanded Billy Hughes’ resignation as Prime Minister. With Stanley Bruce taking over as Prime Minister, the five Liberals, including Latham, effectively rejoined the Nationalist Party, and Latham won re-election in 1925 as a Nationalist.
Latham served as Attorney-General in the Bruce government from 1925 to 1929, when the Nationalists lost power, and Bruce himself lost his seat. Latham became Leader of the Opposition, but yielded the leadership to former Labor minister Joseph Lyons when they formed the new United Australia Party out of the Nationalists and Labor rebels. Latham served as the unofficial Deputy Prime Minister in the first term of the Lyons government (when they governed without the need for support from the Country Party), before retiring at the 1934 election. Latham went on to serve as Chief Justice of the High Court from 1935 to 1952.
Kooyong was won in 1934 by Robert Menzies. Menzies had been elected to the Victorian state parliament in 1928 and had served as Deputy Premier in the United Australia Party government from 1932 to 1934. He was immediately appointed Attorney-General in the Lyons government. He served in the Lyons government until 1939, when he resigned from the Cabinet in protest over what he saw as the government’s inaction. This was shortly before the death of Joseph Lyons in April 1939, which was followed by the UAP electing Robert Menzies as leader, making him Prime Minister.
Menzies’ first term was rocky, with the Second World War being declared in September 1939. He managed to retain power with the support of independents at the 1940 election, but after spending months in Europe on war strategy in 1941 he returned home to opposition within the government, and was forced to resign as Prime Minister and UAP leader. He was replaced as leader by Country Party leader Arthur Fadden, who was followed soon after by Labor leader John Curtin.
Menzies worked in opposition to reform the conservative forces, who suffered a massive defeat at the 1943 election. In 1944 and 1945 he put together the new Liberal Party, which took over from the moribund United Australia Party and a number of splinter groups. He led the party to the 1946 election and won power in 1949.
Menzies held power for the next sixteen years, retaining power at elections in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1961 and 1963, and retiring in January 1966.
The 1966 Kooyong by-election was won by Andrew Peacock, then President of the Victorian Liberal Party. Peacock rose to the ministry in 1969 and served in the ministry until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. He served as a senior frontbencher during the Whitlam government and became Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Fraser government in 1975. He moved to the Industrial Relations portfolio in 1980, but resigned from Cabinet in 1981 due to supposed meddling in his portfolio by the Prime Minister. He launched a failed challenge to Fraser’s leadership and moved to the backbench, although he returned to Cabinet in late 1982, a few months before Malcolm Fraser lost power.
After the 1983 election, Peacock was elected leader, defeating John Howard, who had served as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party for the last few months of the Fraser government. Peacock led the party into the 1984 election, reducing the Hawke government’s majority. With rising speculation of a leadership challenge from Howard (still deputy leader) in 1985, he attempted to replace Howard as deputy leader, but the party room re-elected Howard. This caused Peacock to resign as leader and Howard was elected Leader of the Opposition. Howard led the Liberal Party to a bigger defeat in 1987. Howard was challenged by Peacock in 1989, and Peacock led the Liberal Party to the 1990 election. Despite winning a majority of the two-party preferred vote, Peacock didn’t win enough seats, and he resigned as leader immediately after the election.
Peacock remained on the frontbench under the leadership of John Hewson and Alexander Downer, and retired in 1994. Peacock was appointed Ambassador to the United States upon the election of the Howard government in 1996, and served in the role until 1999.
Kooyong was won at the 1994 by-election by Petro Georgiou, the State Director of the Victorian Liberal Party. Georgiou was a former advisor to Malcolm Fraser and a key proponent of multicultural government policies. Georgiou’s main opposition came from Greens candidate Peter Singer, due to the absence of a Labor candidate. Singer managed 28% of the primary vote, which remained a Greens record until the 2009 Higgins by-election, but it wasn’t enough to seriously challenge the Liberal hold on Kooyong.
Georgiou positioned himself strongly as a moderate within the Liberal Party and despite his impeccable credentials in the Liberal Party and as a policy advisor, he never held a frontbench role in the Howard government. He was openly critical of the Howard government’s refugee policies in the final term of the Howard government. He faced a strong preselection challenge in 2006, but managed to win more than two thirds of votes in the preselection. He managed to win re-election in 2007 with practically no swing against him, despite the Liberals suffering large swings across Australia.
In 2010, Georgiou retired, and he was succeeded by fellow Liberal Josh Frydenberg. Frydenberg has been re-elected three times, and in 2018 was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party. Frydenberg has served in a number of ministerial portfolios, including as Treasurer since 2018.
- Monique Ryan (Independent)
- Scott Hardiman (United Australia)
- Alexandra Thom (Liberal Democrats)
- Michele Dale (Derryn Hinch’s Justice)
- Josh Coyne (One Nation)
- Will Anderson (Independent)
- Josh Frydenberg (Liberal)
- Peter Lynch (Labor)
- Rachael Nehmer (Animal Justice)
- Piers Mitchem (Greens)
- David Connolly (Australian Values)
Assessment
Kooyong has been trending to the left over recent elections, but Frydenberg’s margin is still substantial.
It seems like Monique Ryan is the main challenger to Frydenberg, and may be able to peel off those extra voters who wouldn’t vote Labor or Greens, and has a good chance of winning.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Josh Frydenberg | Liberal | 48,928 | 49.4 | -8.2 | 49.2 |
| Julian Burnside | Greens | 21,035 | 21.2 | +2.7 | 21.1 |
| Jana Stewart | Labor | 16,666 | 16.8 | -3.7 | 17.5 |
| Oliver Yates | Independent | 8,890 | 9.0 | +9.0 | 8.5 |
| Steven D’Elia | United Australia Party | 1,185 | 1.2 | +1.2 | 1.2 |
| Davina Hinkley | Animal Justice | 1,117 | 1.1 | +1.0 | 1.2 |
| Bill Chandler | Independent | 669 | 0.7 | +0.7 | 0.6 |
| Angelina Zubac | Independent | 539 | 0.5 | -2.3 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 3,033 | 3.0 | +1.0 |
2019 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Josh Frydenberg | Liberal | 55,159 | 55.7 | +55.7 | 55.5 |
| Julian Burnside | Greens | 43,870 | 44.3 | +44.3 | 44.5 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Josh Frydenberg | Liberal | 56,127 | 56.7 | -6.1 | 56.4 |
| Jana Stewart | Labor | 42,902 | 43.3 | +6.1 | 43.6 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: north-east, south-east, north-west and south-west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in three out of four areas, polling around 53.1% in the north-west and south-east, and 58.3% in the north-east. The Greens polled 53.8% in the south-west.
The Greens outpolled Labor in three out of four areas, but Labor outpolled the Greens in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | LIB 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 21.6 | 18.9 | 53.1 | 18,884 | 18.1 |
| North-East | 17.5 | 19.3 | 58.3 | 13,356 | 12.8 |
| North-West | 23.3 | 15.0 | 53.1 | 12,659 | 12.1 |
| South-West | 27.8 | 17.1 | 46.2 | 10,621 | 10.2 |
| Pre-poll | 20.5 | 16.8 | 57.2 | 29,217 | 28.0 |
| Other votes | 18.8 | 17.7 | 59.9 | 19,496 | 18.7 |
Election results in Kooyong at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Greens or Labor), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, the Greens, Labor and independent candidates.
Ben
Hawthorn could go with Richmond, has it once did when the area was in the seat of Yarra. However, Hawthorn today has more in common with Higgins than Melbourne.
If you think Hawthorn nowadays should be in the same electorate as Richmond, well, all I can say is you’ve never been to eastern Melbourne. Tell me where in Richmond I can buy a house with a tennis court out the back!
Nicholas
That is why Hawthorn is better suited to Higgins than Melbourne. However, there are parts of Hawthorn that do fit with Richmond.
Yes, I know what you mean. But they’re too sporadic and scattered across the suburb.
Agree, Nicholas, it is only a small area around Glenferrie station/Swinburne that is quite dense and can be compared to the inner city. South of Riversdale Road and close to the Yarra River you have huge mansions and some of the wealthiest residents of Melbourne. Some of the most prestigious schools Scotch College and Strathcona are located in Hawthorn whist others such as Xavier College, Carey and MLC are etc are just across Bakers Road. Infact Borondara has there highest concentrations of private schools in the world, while historically Richmond was industrial and working class and the Yarra River was a major social divide in Inner Melbourne while like i stated the in the Menzies thread this is not the case further upstream such as Lower Plenty versus Templestowe etc.
Hawthorn has nothing in common with Camberwell or Kew.
I disagree. I worked in Hawthorn for a while, and my sister lived in Hawthorn East.
While the Glenferrie Station area is by far the most progressive part of the seat, and demographics are changing with more apartments, Camberwell Junction is not all that different. Nor is Kew Junction. Every seat has some variety in it.
And if you look at the booth results, yes the 61 and 62 GRN 2CP around Glenferrie stands out, but the booths near Camberwell Junction and Kew Junction were 52-53% GRN too. They aren’t exactly chalk and cheese.
Compare that to Higgins where the Liberals get over 70% in Toorak, then only 2km away barely get over 20% in Windsor where the Greens dominate, then in the southeast there’s middle class Carnegie dominated by Labor, that seat (like many others) has far bigger variations and cultural/demographic differences in it than Hawthorn has compared to Kew/Camberwell.
Mon Ryan polling with a 59-41 lead over Frydenberg this morning.
Expat it would help if you told what polling you are talking about.
UComms Poll reported in the Guardian and Herald Sun. 830 ish voters. Primaries of 35% for Frydenburg and 31% for Monique Ryan.
Blather
Thankyou.
830 in a seat of Kooyong enrolment of 108K may not be enoug to make Libs quake in their boots but it is not a Commercial News sampling based on the look of the potential voter. I am sure the Libs will be talking about this.
My feeling is that if Kooyong falls it will only be in an absolute landslide similar to WA. I spent the first month in Australia in the Kooyong electorate some 56years 364 days ago. Spent on a mattress on the floor of Professor Max Crawfords study in Darebin. As £10 pound Poms we were sponsored by friends from Africa who were occupying Professor Crawfords house whilst he was on a sabbatical.
“My feeling is that if Kooyong falls it will only be in an absolute landslide similar to WA.”
@Andrew Jackson
I disagree with this Kooyong is safe but its not ultra safe like some of the other coalition seats they have in Australia. It doesn’t mean I’m not sceptical on the poll though.
Antony Green notes results like WA in the states don’t happen federally. Voters look for who can get the job done in the states but federally voters vote more along lines of politcal ideology.
@PNW – agree 100% with your comments re: state results, especially as the two most lop-sided results in recent memory have occurred in OPV. At these two elections, the exhaustion of preferences created a situation where the party that generally benefits most from preferences were exposed and their vote collapsed, as a result.
WA, atm, is an anomaly due to the situation with lockdown and the cult of personality around McGowan.
Trent
The area isn’t changing that much and Hawthorn has for a long time been politically marginal with the area around Glenferrie Station having always been less Liberal friendly than the area around Scotch College, and you can see that by the difference in housing with the area around Swinburne having streets lined with workers cottages and there’s worker cottages in parts of Hawthorn East.
The seat has changed they don’t weigh the liberal votes here any more. There is also a left ward trend here. But the libs would be favoured to keep. There was an opinion polls here showing Richards winning 60 /40 is she a teal?
Josh Frydenberg is getting heat and rightly so for putting out a pamphlet with the CEO of Guide Dogs Victoria endorsing him as a candidate. If the CEO had endorsed him as private citizen then that’s fine. But her title and the organisation were specifically mentioned in the endorsement for Frydenberg. The Guide Dogs Victoria board said it was done without their permission and a launching an internal investigation.
Seriously this pretty lame and why doesn’t this surprise me. And charities in general need to work with both sides of government and are required to be impartial from regulations of the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission. Their allowed to lobby or champion an issue or change in law though. Its also in their best interest to stay impartial as supporters and members come from all sides of political persuasion.
You might suggest this is a desperate move from Frydenberg from the poll. But I still think he will retain which is a shame. I just think his seat would be getting more media attention if his seat was in jeopardy. I hope I’m wrong though.
For various reasons I have driven a lot through Kooyong lately and observed lots of Monique Ryan corflutes. Yesterday , I compared my observations with the Green PV in 2019 and found a very strong correalation. Monique Ryan might be just picking up the Burnside and Yates voters from last time. She will be stronger further west. Interesting also that there were almost no signs off major roads – even secondary main roads had none.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/frydenberg-to-remove-scouts-from-campaign-material-20220421-p5af2a.html
This is getting ridiculous.
Redistributed: Brisbane City Council passed an ordinance last year setting limits on the number of corflutes a candidate can have per electorate, despite the questionable constitutionality- maybe there’s a similar law in Boroondara? Or it might just be that the campaigns are prioritising main roads first. After all you’ve got to actually get volunteers out to put the things up.
The number of corflutes here is unbelievable. The junctions and shopping areas are littered with giant Frydenberg posters and a large percentage of homes have either Monique Ryan or Frydenberg corflutes. Haven’t really noticed many Green or Labor corflutes thought.
The huge Josh Frydenburg ad on top of Monique Ryan’s campaign office at Camberwell Junction is really quite something.
Seen a handful of Greens corflutes but for the ALP – not a one.
Corflutes are one of the few ways that minor parties and independents can be on a level playing feel with Major Parties. Liberals especially seem to have adopted a policy of putting up massive quantities of them to the extent that they become a bloody eye sore resulting in Councils taking steps to significantly limit them. Brisbane City Council not only limits numbers but wants to know exactly where they are located. This of course benefits the major parties with greater resources.
When I first campaigned the party got a permit from Electriccity distributor and we went out at night with Plywood or Burnie Board signs climbed up a ladder and hammered them in to telegraph pole. Party members had working bee to paste signs to boards prior to this. Following the election we drove around with a long piece of wood knocked down the signs and then stored boards for next election. Boards eventually deteriorated but in 1972 election I had 50 Boards which lasted me till flood in 1974 when the hardboard turned to pulp. Today all of these parties with such a high level of v commitment to environmentalism replace the Corflutes every election.
My Local Mayor told me that he gives all of his Corflutes to SES who stick faces to each other making a double sided white sign and they use these as replacement windows when disaster strikes. I just got back from
A weeks holiday and an old Corflute was useful as a jigsaw tray.
No ALP corflutes wouldn’t be that strange – I’m seeing the same in Curtin, with a lot of Lib and Ind corflutes, but very, very few from either Greens or ALP. Basically the left wing parties know what the race is this time, and know they’re not part of it. And they don’t particularly care.
Thus they stay out because it’s causing the Libs to divert attention from defending marginal seats or attacking ALP seats. The Greens will put in *some* effort due to their focus being the Senate, but only some. They realistically would rather a teal indy to a Liberal, so they won’t want to poison the well too much.
Monique Ryan tweeted earlier that she drew #1 on the ballot, Frydenberg down at #7. Things seem to be breaking her way here. Ballot order is often over-estimated as a factor, but in a close contest every bit of help counts I guess. A lib loss would still be a huge boilover result imo, will see if it has impacted the betting odds…
The Age just reported that Monique Ryan drew first spot on the Kooyong ballot, and Josh Frydenburg drew the 7th spot.
If this results comes down to less than a 1% margin the donkey vote could possibly be influential in the result.
For some reason when I use a web browser rather than my mobile to comment on here, it doesn’t refresh the page properly and I can’t see recent comments. So apologies, I didn’t see LT’s comment basically stating the same thing as me until after I had written mine, then had to refresh 7-8 times for mine to appear for me and both appeared for the first time!
Wish there was a Libdem option. The majors are both too aligned to WEF, which works against our sovereignty. There is a need for smaller parties. Josh is on the nose right now and Labor’s brand is tainted by Andrews. Should be interesting.
Trent: That happens to me all the time. It’s a server side bug.
Having just said that, I now realise that the Climate 200 “Independents” are backed by the Holmes A Courts and Peter of that family has regular ties with WEF Davos too – so I guess they were just too good to be true.
Guide Dogs Victoria CEO Karen Hayes has been stood down, following an internal investigation into endorsements she gave to the Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
This was an extraordinary lapse in judgement for Hayes, Frydenberg and Frydenberg’s campaign team.
The announcement simply shows that the board of Guide Dogs Victoria is dominated by Green and Labor activists.
@Entrepreneur 100% agreed
Kooyong will be a lean liberal seat.
@Entrepreneur and @Ben such a boomer take.
If it was a Labor or Green politician getting endorsed by a CEO of a charity in that capacity they would deserved to be sacked also for breaching the impartiality of the charity and risking its tax free status.
Cry more.
Sorry Ben and Entrereneur, but any charity which receives public money cannot overtly support any political party/candidate. Indeed any community organisation- from the local Arts group or Girl Guides cannot support a political candidate without as a minimum a majority vote of their board.
This is so obvious to just about everyone, I immediately would question the competence of Ms Hayes for failing to know this. Of course as an individual she could offer support but with the usual proviso that here views cannot be considered those of the organisation of which she is a CEO.
To dismiss this basic principle of community organisations is quite unacceptable in a democracy. Consider how you would feel if she had publicly supported Monique Ryan.
the first martyr. hope frydenburg gives her a job
Correct. Her openly endorsing a political candidate has jeopardised the legal charity status of Guide Dogs Victoria.
It’s not activism, it’s the law. It’s that simple.
@Ben Imagine if Josh gave her a job and there was a FICAC. Not a good look even compared to this one. From the frying pan and into the fire.
Ben, from reading your comments on several threads here I can see you aren’t interested in any kind of substantive psephological discussion, only in partisan chants and trolling on behalf of the Liberal party. I don’t think those of us here who discuss substantive election matters appreciate that.
I’m putting cash on Frydenberg, from a leaning labor voter living in the Kingsford Smith electorate.
@midnightcitizen im simply stating as i see it you dont seem to worried about the people who are patrolling the other side of the fence saying that everyone hates scomo and theyre as good as gone
The Liberal Party hierarchy are quite concerned about Josh Frydenberg losing Kooyong to the point that in the last fortnight there has been a massive increase in the Coalition’s spending of political advertising for his seati It’s their biggest spend on an individual seat. If the Liberals lose Frydenberg it will have enormous implications for Coalition. My feeling is he will just hang on.
Next leader Alex Hawke
Mick
Surely when Morrison goes, Hawke goes? Given their close partnership I don’t see any other way. The conservatives will not soon forget how their fellows were swept aside so that Hawke could keep his grip on his seat. The next leader will be a conservative imo.
I thought of the most strange result
For the Teals, Matt Canavan is the gift that just keeps on giving ..
Redistributed: yep, and now Frydenberg’s bailing on the Kooyong candidates’ forum.
I put a bet on this months ago because the odds were pretty sweet, generally expecting that Frydenberg would probably hang on, but I’m at the stage now where I’m pretty confident he’s gone.
Canavan’s mouth will do more damage to Libs in Kooyong, Wentworth, Goldstein, North Sydney, Goldstein than Katherine Deves ever will
Yes echt , you are right about the effect of Matt Canavan’ s mouth. It is a pity for the Coalition’s chances in inner city marginal seats that he seems to be a ” darling” of Channel 9’s Today show.That is why Josh Frydenberg told Canavan to put metaphorically a sock or a big lump of coal in his mouth.
Rob Baillieu posted on Twitter that they are well on their way to knocking on every door in Kooyong. Much weaker grassroots campaigns have flipped harder seats. Greens are still actively campaigning too (if they’re were smart they’d pivot resources to Higgins)
I suspect not only will Monique Ryan will win in a landslide, but Labor will win the 2PP (and Greens would have too). She isn’t another Yates.
Greg Sheridan in this mornings Australian alleges that the teal candidate Allegra Spender actually refused the opportunity for a channel 9 debate between her and Josh Frydenberg. The only possible reason for this is that she feels that She will do more damage by talking then I just avoid evading debate. Rehearsal fact that she’d will take pt ina debate on Sky has made me think maybe Sky has a wit audince than I thought it had.