IND 3.5% vs LIB
Incumbent MP
Monique Ryan, since 2022.
Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Kooyong covers a majority of the Boroondara council area and part of the Stonnington council area, including the suburbs of Armadale, Hawthorn, Kew, Kooyong, Malvern, Canterbury, Surrey Hills, Balwyn, Toorak and parts of Camberwell.
Redistribution
Kooyong expanded south, taking in the suburbs of Kooyong, Toorak, Armadale and Malvern from the abolished seat of Higgins. Kooyong lost Mont Albert and Mont Albert North to Menzies, and lost part of Camberwell and the remainder of Glen Iris to Chisholm. These changes increased the estimated margin for Ryan from 2.9% to 3.5%.
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 was re-elected three times, and in 2018 was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party. Frydenberg served in a number of ministerial portfolios, including as Treasurer from 2018 until 2022.
Frydenberg was defeated in 2022 by independent candidate Monique Ryan.
Assessment
The 2022 political environment was more favourable to independents than it is now, but Monique Ryan should benefit from a personal vote that will help her win a second term.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Josh Frydenberg | Liberal | 43,736 | 42.7 | -6.5 | 43.4 |
| Monique Ryan | Independent | 41,303 | 40.3 | +40.3 | 30.8 |
| Peter Lynch | Labor | 7,091 | 6.9 | -10.6 | 11.3 |
| Piers Mitchem | Greens | 6,461 | 6.3 | -14.8 | 9.8 |
| Alexandra Thom | Liberal Democrats | 1,080 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 1.4 |
| Scott Hardiman | United Australia | 1,011 | 1.0 | -0.2 | 1.2 |
| Rachael Nehmer | Animal Justice | 500 | 0.5 | -0.7 | 0.7 |
| Josh Coyne | One Nation | 741 | 0.7 | +0.7 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.4 | ||||
| Will Anderson | Independent | 265 | 0.3 | +0.3 | 0.2 |
| Michele Dale | Hinch’s Justice Party | 177 | 0.2 | +0.1 | 0.1 |
| David Connolly | Australian Values Party | 152 | 0.1 | +0.2 | 0.1 |
| Informal | 3,046 | 2.9 | -0.1 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Monique Ryan | Independent | 54,276 | 52.9 | 53.5 | |
| Josh Frydenberg | Liberal | 48,241 | 47.1 | 46.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Josh Frydenberg | Liberal | 55,542 | 54.2 | -2.2 | 53.7 |
| Peter Lynch | Labor | 46,975 | 45.8 | +2.2 | 46.3 |
Booths have been divided into five areas: central, east, north-east, north-west and south. The “South” covers all of the areas added to Kooyong from Higgins, and thus no cover votes were cast there for Monique Ryan.
Ryan won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in three of the other four areas, ranging from 53.7% in the north-west to 60.4% in the centre. The Liberal Party won 51.1% in the north-east.
The two-party-preferred vote (between Liberal and Labor) was recorded everywhere. Generally the Liberal Party did 7-9% better on the 2PP than on the 2CP. Labor won in Central but the Liberal Party won everywhere else.
| Voter group | LIB 2PP | IND 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 53.9 | 53.7 | 10,921 | 9.9 |
| East | 54.9 | 54.0 | 10,894 | 9.9 |
| Central | 48.5 | 60.4 | 9,218 | 8.4 |
| South | 51.7 | 0.0 | 8,962 | 8.1 |
| North-East | 58.7 | 48.9 | 7,828 | 7.1 |
| Pre-poll | 52.5 | 38.3 | 37,574 | 34.1 |
| Other votes | 56.1 | 35.8 | 24,835 | 22.5 |
Election results in Kooyong at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Independent and Labor vs Liberal), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidates, Labor and the Greens.
@Pencil, it does actually. Thanks for sharing that, I’ve always wondered what Henty’s exact boundary was because I know Murrumbeena was in it for a long time.
If you move that eastern boundary westward to Warrigal Rd or Poath Rd, and the western boundary back to around Orrong Road or Hotham St, you have a pretty great community of interest within those boundaries I think. And it would improve the seats around it too (Macnamara, Hotham, Goldstein).
This term will be interesting for all of the Teals as the huge Labor majority effectively deprives them of any oxygen. It is hard enough for the Coalition to get oxygen and national exposure let alone the Teals. They can concentrate on their local areas or be fundamentally irrelevant.
@Votante:
Looking back at the history, Georgiou easily defeated Frydenburg in a preselection ballot in 2009, then retired at the election.
So, it’s been a left-Liberal seat for 50 years before Ryan won, there won’t be a lurch to the Right for Frydenburg or any other candidate, imo, other than John Pesutto.
We might see a shift in Ryan’s approach to things both in parliament and in Kooyong following her close call. We might also see a ‘more active than your average first-term’ teal in Boele since she narrowly scraped through.
I think that like me, many others overestimated the teals’ chances this election and never expected narrow contests. This was even on the back of a very unpopular Liberal Party and leader.
@Votante the Liberals did well with their postal campaign which was covered quite extensively in Victoria. Having Hamer and Wilson posing as Liberals disguised as some sort of moderates also worked a treat in deceiving the people of Kooyong and Goldstein that they’d be getting small-l liberals in the veins of Ted Ballieu rather than the toxicity of the likes of Tim Smith.
The NSW Liberal candidates in Teal seats weren’t bad either, they were just up against popular incumbents who hasn’t set a foot wrong. In Victoria Ryan had her own issues which cancelled out her advantage against Hamer (who in turn cancelled our her own advantage by pretending to be a renter when she’s a property owner), whilst Zoe Daniel was undone by being less vocal on Israel/Gaza which was something Wilson campaigned on quite frequently to the people of Caulfield South. In contrast Allegra Spender was big on antisemitism in parliament and was very engaged with the community, whilst Zoe Daniel was too obsessed with gambling reforms and Monique Ryan was able to somewhat conjure a win with the HECs debt deduction by the government which she advocated for.
Hamer owns a property in London and Canberra she lives in Melbourne so it’s hard for to live in those houses. Given her career is in Melbourne.she still rents a house in Melbourne does she not
@Tommo9, well, technically if they were elected they would’ve been similar to Ted Bailleu ideologically, whether the party leadership was or wasn’t is a different question. It’s important to distinguish between individual members, individual supporters and the leadership of the party.
Also I don’t think gambling reforms are bad or unpopular, I think the opposite would be true. I think it was just the Victorian teals were more vocally progressive whereas the NSW ones stayed loyal to their word.
Agree NP, it is in fact advantageous to get a moderate Coalition MP as a local member because they can act as a more independent voice, similar to Bridget Archer in Bass who often challenged certain policies from the leadership.
@Yoh An It was pretty clear that both Hamer and Wilson were pretty much tied up to Dutton word for word even though they are moderates. And how did Bridget Archer end up? She is a good MP but got punted for being part of Dutton who was toxic. She could’ve survived if she became teal.
@Nether Portal I don’t think gambling reforms are bad either it’s just that Daniel was super obsessed with it and there’s been pretty much nothing else coming from her apart from this topic which wasn’t addressed by the government even after the Murphy report. At least Monique Ryan had a win by being able to convince the government to cut HECs debt.
@Tommo9 she held a marginal seat and without the Dutton factor would’ve won (this is the case for probably most seats that Labor won given Albo was also unpopular per polling).
In Tassie I would expect her to easily get elected and given the circumstances the Liberals will probably win the election.
@Nether Portal actually Albanese was popular in terms of preferred PM given he’s consistently beaten Dutton and his popularity was at worst on part with Scott Morrison 2019-2022 when he was ahead of Albanese as preferred PM and was actually popular in Tasmania. I think credit is due when it’s due.