Kooyong – Australia 2022

LIB 5.5% vs GRN

Incumbent MP
Josh Frydenberg, since 2010.

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%.

History

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.

Candidates

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.

2019 result

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

Booth breakdown

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.

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274 COMMENTS

  1. Kaniel
    Criticism of CHICOM regime is not racist. I fully support the government of Republic of China being treated as the Government of China. Opposition to a totalitarian dictatorship has nothing whatsoever to do with race. I make no comment about the sympathies of the Chinese community in Kooyong. The Liberal party is certainly not sinophobic . Phobia is an irrational fear. All nations and all Chinese communities have a right to be justifiably scared of CCP operatives in Australia.

  2. That’s right, the LNP are not so Sinophobic. If they were, they wouldn’t have sold several of our ports and huge areas of land to the Chinese.

  3. Does anyone think that the “keep a moderate in the Libs” rhetoric and Josh’s personal vote will save him?

  4. It might help Votante. In the end I think Kooyong will be tight.

    Goldstein to be an better margin for the Independent.

  5. I think Monique Ryan’s win with the AEC ruling today will help sway some undecided voters her way tomorrow.

    She’s not even elected and has achieved an outcome that the LNP couldn’t achieve while governing, and she’s already pushing that point too.

    At the very least, it will blunt doubts that voting for an independent will be useless because they can’t achieve anything. Josh is in government, why couldn’t he influence the AEC decision?

  6. Josh Frydenberg has conceded today. One Liberal anonymously suggested today in the Courier Mail Alan Tudge should step aside for Josh Frydenberg. Tudge’s seat of Aston has a significantly reduced margin so it would be a risk to do it.

    Fairly or unfairly Frydenberg lost a previously safe Liberal seat though. Its like Kristina Keneally losing Fowler. Once a pilot crashes a plane they won’t get a second chance.

  7. @ Political Nightwatchman Well to be fair there is virtually no safe Liberal seat left in Victoria that somebody can step aside from for Frydenberg so… La Trobe, Flinders and Wannon are the only 3 that did not swing to Labor as far as I know and even Wannon was at risk of an independent.

  8. There have been suggestions of Josh going to Spring Street. Not a bad idea as both Hawthorn and Box Hill are winnable – Hawthorn would be a better fit. Hypothetical scenario – Alan Tudge pulls the pin, John Pessutto goes to Aston, Josh to Hawthorn.

  9. Hawthorn is the less Liberal part of Kooyong. The voters would also probably find it a slap in the face for him to run again after an unceremonious rejection. If the Liberals want to win Hawthorn Frydenberg is not their man.

  10. It would be awkward if Josh Frydenberg were to go from a federal treasurer to a state backbencher.
    John Pesutto got preselected to run again for the state seat of Hawthorn. The margin is slim and it’s winnable. Josh could do a Campbell Newman, like someone joked about, by becoming an OL outside parliament and then winning government and becoming the Premier.

  12. Adda
    The state seat extends beyond Hawthorn to include Camberwell and Surrey Hills but when it comes to Hawthorn its the area around Swinburne that is the Liberal Party’s weakest area however they do better in other parts of Hawthorn.

  13. Russell Broadbent is 71 years old and has been a bit of a loose cannon lately. Definitely not returning to the front bench. Quite likely to retire.

    Monash ended up surprisingly marginal, but there will likely be a low point in Labor’s term where Liberals feel like they could comfortably parachute him back in there. If they don’t like the media attention they may do so at the general election.

    They could easily set up some story about Frydenberg living a quiet life in South Gippsland before deciding to reenter politics.

  14. The AEC has calculated the TPP here and it results in the Liberals winning with a 4.2% margin. Not particularly surprising that they only got a minor swing against them, and it’s the same case in Goldstein as well (which I’ll post on its page in a moment).

  15. I had a go at Kooyong 2022 but under OPV. Under my assumptions below, Monique Ryan would’ve still won but it would be ultra-marginal.

    Lib: 43,736 + 1,121 + 822 = 45,679
    Ind: 41,303 + 4,484 + 548 = 46,335

    14,012 votes (Lab+Grn+AnJ)
    3,426 votes (RW minors)

    LW pref flows: 8% Libs, 32% Ind, 60% exhausted
    RW pref flows: 24% Libs, 16% Ind, 60% exhausted
    Non-exhausted votes: 92,014

    2CP: IND 0.4% vs LIB

  16. Ian I think you have overestimated the liberal minus 0.4%. The exhaust rate would be lower. There is a high alp and green vote under opv
    Such preferences can be directed by alp and gr. I think the teal vote would be higher than yr estimated vote under
    Opv

  17. An article today suggests director of strategy tech start-up company Amelia Hamer is considering standing for the Liberals in Kooyong. The article suggests Hamer interest is likely going to force Josh Frydenberg decision sooner rather then later on whether he will stand for preselection. A source in the article also suggests Frydenberg is in a conundrum because if he won back Kooyong it would suggest a Liberal election victory. And Frydenberg has no interest being a minster again in a Dutton government. He want’s the top job as leader. I don’t necessary agree with this in fact I think the rationale is foolish. John Pesutto won back Hawthorn, but the Liberals lost in landslide at the last state election. James Campbell wrote some Liberals think even if Peter Dutton is successful in the no vote winning at The Voice referendum. That its going to damage the Liberals prospects long term in teals seats; with all these factors in play my guess is Frydenberg will call time on his political career and won’t recontest Kooyong.

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/30-year-old-from-political-dynasty-could-set-up-kooyong-battle-as-frydenberg-mulls-anguishing-call-20230811-p5dvqo.html

  19. That depends I doubt the voice will be a decision for voting against the liberals especially in the teal seats especially in Wentworth and warringah where there was a report that the no vote is stronger but I don’t know how reliable that is. If the no vote is stronger in a teal electorate it could harm them

  20. @Nimalan

    Nikki Savva wrote in her book Bamboozled that Josh Frydenberg’s parents do live in Higgins. But Frydenberg contesting Higgins isn’t likely going to happen. Whether the reason Frydenberg is not interested or something else. Whatever the reason it isn’t seen as an option. Frydenberg already ruled out contesting Aston, not sure why you think he will say yes to Higgins or is ‘a great chance’ with the Liberals falling further back from last election on current polling. I have read reports previous member for Higgins Katie Allen is intent on recontesting Higgins.

  21. Josh could contest Higgins, depending on where in Kooyong he’s from. If he’s from Hawthorn or Kew then he would need to relocate because the redistribution will definitely not take those suburbs out of Kooyong given that they are the centre of Kooyong (like in a Sydney how Manly is the centre of Warringah, Cronulla is the centre of Cook, Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills are the centre of Mitchell, etc).

    Both Higfins and Kooyong had the Liberals ahead on primaries but behind on TPP in 2022. Even if Higgins is Labor-held, the voters really tried hard to avoid voting Labor and it’s on a small margin so it’s the most likely seat that the Liberals will gain from Labor anywhere in Victoria (except maybe McEwen depending on the redistribution; and yes I just said that Higgins is more likely to be won by the Liberals than Aston is). Higgins is a mix between Kooyong and Mitchell; it’s a more Moderate seat like Kooyong, mostly white-collar, upper-middle-class and (normally) conservative like both seats but Higgins is not winnable for the teals unlike Kooyong. Higgins also has a history of many influential Liberals, including former Prime Ministers Harold Holt and John Gorton, as well as former Treasurer Peter Costello (who was deputy leader under John Howard).

    What’s interesting though is that the Liberals thought Goldstein was more likely to fall from Liberal (Tim Wilson) to teal (I forget her name) than Kooyong was from Liberal (Josh Frydenburg) to teal (Monique Ryan, I do remember her name), yet while both seats were won by teals Kooyong is actually the safer seat, even if it is by a bee’s dick.

  22. My proposal will see Kooyong take in the remainder of boorondora from Higgins and use the creek as the boundary. I’m also proposing a name change to Humphries

  23. To so extent Josh Frydenburg was collateral damage in Kooyong’s (and other electorates) visceral loathing for Scott Morrison. If he ran again, he would be in a position to win. Monique Ryan – unlike the other Teals – is ideologically out of step with her electorate and her support may be thin. Several Kooyong Teal voters I know – and who were donors and fundraisers – were keen John Pessuto voters at the state level.

  24. @redistributed I agree frydenburg will most likely win if he ran again. In fact I believe most of the teals could be defeated as most were defeated by the anti Morrison/government vote but Ryan in particular has had a public battle with her staffer. The redistribution will benefit spender taking in labor territory and stegall obviously has dug herself in and has independents either side. The rest I believe are beatable.and the liberals will benefit from anti-Albo/government vote.

  25. @ Nether Portal
    I believe JF is from Kew. I agree he will need to move to Malvern etc to contest Higgins but that is relatively close, property prices are the same and if his children go to Local schools it should not affect by forcing them to change schools also the affluent core of Higgins shares a community of interest with Kooyong so he will not be seen as a parachute. I would argue that had JF been the member for Higgins he would have actually survived, voting labor for the very affluent is a much harder than voting Teal they need to hold their nose to vote Labor. JF did better on the primary vote than in all other seats with Teal challenges, while in Higgins the drop in the Liberal primary vote from 2016 has actually been smaller given voting Labor is a harder proposition. The other issue that hurt JF in Kooyong was the Hawkish stance towards China especially around the Balwyn high school zone,this is the least Tealish part of the seat and if it was not for this he may have survived with the support of the Chinese Australian community. I think this will be the biggest challenge to regain Kooyong even though i agree Monique Ryan is the least popular of the Teals. The next redistribution may add more middle class areas in Burwood/Box Hill again with a strong Chinese community and this may make it harder. Higgins and Goldstein actually have a bigger Jewish community. If JF had been the member for Goldstein and lived in Caulfield South again he may have survived due to better community ties.

  26. @ Political Nightwatchman, Fair Point regarding Nikki Savva’s book, i hear you. One point is i can understand why he did not contest Aston. Aston is a middle class electorate where bread and butter issues are more important than the future direction of the Liberal party, it is an area where there is genuine Labor party support. Even in 2022 federal election Labor primary vote was higher in Aston than Higgins or Macnamara (where there was no Teal). People in Aston dont have a class based aversion to voting Labor and when Labor is popular and actually campaigns in the area they actually do well in Knox. For example, based on the November state election figures Aston would have been Labor already same on the 2010 Federal election results. My point about Higgins was two fold (Cultural demographics-more Jewish less Chinese compared to Kooyong) and the fact that the main challenger is Labor not Teal again my analogy about people holding their nose to Vote Labor as the least worse option.

  27. @nimalan if the Chinese vote recovers he won’t have any problem. Chinese households and smalll business will be hurting due to cost of living and should return to the coalition

  28. @ John i agree if the Chinese vote recovers he be in a much better position to win Kooyong or if the Libs did not alienate this community in the first place he probably would have survived based on this community. It is the million dollar question if there will be recovery in this community for the Libs. I suspect it will not be as easy as Dutton is more hated than Morrison and sometimes emotional hurt takes longer to heal. It maybe the case conversely that Federal Labor is alienating the Jewish community in Higgins for example withdrawal of recognition of West Jerusalem or potential recognition of Palestinian statehood. What i would say is that niche issues can often impact the voting patterns of minorities even though i agree in most cases economics is what people vote on the most.

  29. @nimalan time heals all wounds.if the can choose a local candidate who can identify with the Chinese community that would be of benefit. They did not set out to alienate the Chinese community they simply stood up to the communist govt. the Chinese govt then weaponised this to discourage them from voting liberal and to vote labor. Your right the same thing will happen to labor with the Jews.

  31. He just got a job at Goldman Sachs. And announced he won’t contest Kooyong. I think Monique Ryan just breathed a sigh of relief.

  32. I don’t think Frydenberg explicitly ruled out running in 2028 and/or running in another seat. After all, he was touted as a future party leader. I expect a hotter preselection contest in Higgins than in Kooyong. At least it’s a classic Labor vs Liberal candidate. It’s easier for a teal to get a wealthy voter or a life-long Liberal voter to vote for them than it is to vote for a Labor candidate.

    I sense Tim Wilson will run for Goldstein. He’s much younger than Frydenberg and still pumps out political commentary.

  33. Surely the Liberals won’t be stupid enough to run Georgina Downer as she was a Liberal candidate in ANOTHER state previously. She should run in Mayo not here.

    And running the failed candidate for Aston would also be suicidal. She doesn’t live here either. The best bet for the Liberal party is to run Amelia Hamer who I believe is the best person to win this seat back, she is a close relative of former premiership Dick Hamer and was a popular moderate liberal premier.

    Will the Liberal party ever accept reality and choose a candidate that stood for the principles Hamer and Menzies stood for?

  34. Is the Josh Frydenberg era officially over? Amelia Hamer, the 31-year-old Oxford-educated grand-niece of former Victorian premier Sir Rupert “Dick” Hamer, has won preselection to become the Liberal Party’s candidate for Kooyong reported in the Age. It’s going to be hard task winning this seat back off Monique Ryan and I just can’t see the Liberals contending at the next election.

    I generally think the Liberals best chance is pushing Labor into a minority government. And then Ryan being forced to make a decision to back Labor which could alienate some of the electorate. Ryan having a legal squabble with a former staffer isn’t the best look, but I don’t think it will be terminal to her re-election hopes though. It’s been out of the headlines for a while now.

    I can’t see Frydenberg coming back into politics. He doesn’t want to re-enter parliament unless he’s leader. There is no guarantee that would happen even if he won back Kooyong, because Peter Dutton may become Prime Minster if Kooyong turned blue. I think in the end there is too many hassles and obstacles that he won’t return.

  35. I’d say Amelia Hamer is the perfect pick for the Liberals if they want to win Kooyong back, and even more so than Josh Frydenberg, To the extent that were Frydenberg to recontest, I believe Monique Ryan would retain the seat. Against Amelia Hamer being not just a fresh face but carrying that small l liberal family lineage, I think she’ll have a much tougher time; would even say aside from the NSW redistribution potentially pushing out a teal up in North Sydney that Monique Ryan may be the likeliest teal to lose in 2025.

    On a sepearate note, if the Liberals pre-select Tim Wilson again for Goldstein, I’d say Zoe Daniel should not have any issue retaining her seat.

  36. Monique Ryan is the most vulnerable of the Teals as she is the most polarising and ideologically most out of tune with the broader electorate. From what one can see now the Libs have made a good pick. The other Teals will be very very hard to knock off.

  37. Hamer would win. Her great-uncle was a rockstar-popular premier of Victoria. They would be stupid not to nominate her.

  38. Amelia Hamer could market herself as the “real teal” as part of her campaign, staying true to fiscal conservatism and moderate social views such as mitigating climate change.

  40. I agree that Monique Ryan is in more trouble than the other teals, pending redistributions.
    What could save her is a strong campaign tying Amelia Hamer in with Peter Dutton or emphasising the prospect of a Dutton government. Bear in mind, Frydenberg’s personal vote in 2022 might’ve inflated the Liberal vote.

  41. I’m not sure why conservative media is so set on Kooyong/Monique Ryan in comparison to the other teals but I don’t think she is at particularly higher risk than those in Curtin or Mackellar. I’ll note that her margin is higher than in the former despite the disproportionate resources placed on Frydenberg, while demographic change has turned Kooyong considerably less Liberal-friendly over time.

  42. Frydenburg bankrupted the bloke who claimed he was ineligible under s.44, there were other unrelated issues, plus there’s his combative personality.
    Anyone could’ve beaten him, provided The Greens didn’t run a Star Candidate who drew votes away, as happened to Oliver Yates in 2019.
    Ryan appears to have an unpleasant personality as well.
    Dick Hamer was 50 years ago and he essentially failed, so unless she’s an outstanding candidate, it’s a token choice and the Liberals are struggling to find good candidates in Victoria.

  43. Monique Ryan will hold on especially in this current environment where the state liberals are tearing themselves apart and what the Tasmanian election has shown us that the country still wants something away from the two major parties. I read somewhere above about Dick Hamer being popular as he was premier in Victoria for a considerable amount of time, the only reason why liberals lasted so long in Victoria was the constant factional infighting which kept them out of office thanks to the democratic labor which gave its preferences to the liberals.

  44. Henry Bolte won 6 elections on the trot and retired shortly befor the 7th, that’s why Dick Hamer was ever Premier.
    In 1981, a backbencher [Ian Smith] told The Age that fellow Liberal backbenchers were “quivering in fear at the prospect of Dick leading them to the 1982 Election”.
    Hamer resigned soon after and Labor has ruled Victoria 31 [and counting] of the last 43 years.
    So, no, he wasn’t particularly popular and he wasn’t respected in the way Bolte had been.

  45. Gympie, Bolte quit because he was almost certainly going to lose to Labor in 1973. People wanted something fresh and Bolte realised he couldn’t appeal to the inner suburbs or outer suburbs anymore. So they installed Hamer with Boltes support, He put the state first and put his conservatism aside. Something that the current Liberals especially federally would never do.

    You say Hamer wasn’t popular? Then explain the landslide in in 1976 and decent win in 1973. He became less popular later on in his premiership but Labor barely made a dent in 1979. He would have lost 1982 but only narrowly. It was more of “it’s time factor” and Malcolm Frasers unpopularity likely did not help either.

  46. I think Monique Ryan will still hold Kooyong despite Amelia Hamer’s preselection given:
    – It’s mainly the older generations that would have remembered who is Rupert Hamer but they are already the most LNP (in TPP) voting cohort in Kooyong. Rarely any young voters would have even heard of Rupert Hamer.
    – Kooyong voted Yes (just shy of 60%) in the Voice Referendum and they wouldn’t like Peter Dutton’s right-wing populist and anti-intellectual stance especially among the younger white-collar professionals
    – As a result of Peter Dutton’s right-wing populist and anti-intellectual stance, even moderate Libs candidates wouldn’t be saved after all Higgins became a Labor gain even though Katie Allan was already amongst the most progressive Libs and no teal candidate.
    – Kooyong would likely have to gain more Labor friendly suburbs which would be Ashburton and parts of Burwood (on paper but they mostly likely are teals voters if they were in Kooyong)
    – The seat is populated by white-collar professionals

  47. I think Monique Ryan is the most vulnerable of the Teals. Kate chancy could face a challenge due to redistribution and correction in wa too and I think kyles tink will lose out due to ns being abolished even if albo goes early it will force spender to fight stegall in the combined division

  48. I agree with Marh, with a couple of additional points
    1. While Amelia Hamer maybe a great candidate, she is not likely to be leader in the next 3-6 years that was different to JF. Many small l liberals would have voted for JF in 2022 in the hope that if he survived he could have been the leader and moderated the party. Hamer if elected is not likely to have much influence in the short term.
    2. Dutton is more hated that Morrision about moderate voters and many dont want him as PM and blame him for a chain of events which he started in August 2018 which led to the Libs where they are now.
    3. The is a large Chinese Community here who would not want Dutton as PM for obvious reasons and they will likely vote Teal to prevent Dutton becoming PM
    4. I do agree that Monique Ryan is less popular of all the Teals and more ideologically out of step but for the reasons i mentioned above probably has a great chance of being re-elected.

  49. I think the Teals messaging appeals better for white collar employees rather than old-money business owners as evidence
    – Toorak having one booth voting No on the Voice (although narrowly) but Hawthorn having heavy Yes voting booths indicating wealthy people in Toorak aren’t the same as people like Hawthorn

    -In New Zealand, their wealthiest seat Epsom in Auckland actually voted for the Right-libertarian ACT party meaning not even NZ’s equivalent to the LNP (National Party) won it.

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