Kooyong – Australia 2028

Considering the collapse in support for the Libs nation-wide, it was a good result for them here especially around the areas transferred from the old Higgins. Monique Ryan being one of the more vulnerable teal independents might struggle against a Frydenberg challenge especially if he pitches himself as the next Lib leader. She was saved by a large swing to Labor around Balwyn which flowed on as preferences, similar to how Boele pulled off her victory in Bradfield.

Should be aliberal win in 2028. Either Hamer or Frydenberg should win this back from Ryan.

Good point Dan M. I have not looked at the Kooyong results closely but it may well be from what you say that in some areas a winning Ryan 2CP was actually more reflective of the Labor primary, than her primary.

NOTE: Both Bradfield and Kooyong 2025 are the only contests I know of where the Labor flow of preferences to teal IND was lower than the other way around – utterly destroying the logic of tactical voting in these contests

Interestingly Bradfield and Kooyong have the largest Chinese community of the Teal seats and the most diverse so maybe many in the Chinese community have a preference for Labor over Teal.

The Liberals can kiss goodbye to this seat given that they’ve now dumped Net Zero. Great going.

The decision by the Liberals to scrap the 2050 net zero is really disappointing and honestly a slap in the face to tealish and moderate voters, especially in Kooyong.

I remember in the post-election review from 2025 and Sussan Ley’s election as leader, they keep going on about how ‘government is formed from the centre’, ‘the sensible centre’, yet they seem to be steadily shifting to the right federally. Thinking government is formed in the right is incorrect on so many levels, and very evident across this country. An embracement of Trump-style, hard-right politics is something that many Australians will not even consider reciprocating.

The Liberals are becoming hopeless at this point, lacking any new talent within parliament, and being more interested in keeping conservative voters in their tent, rather than actually appealing to the cohort of more centrist voters. Any hope of a 2028 win is honestly finished as this extreme inability to read the electorate and focus on themselves will continually cost them even seats, and only shore up their margins or mitigate pro-Labor swings in a handful of seats. If you thought 2025 was bad, 2028 will be even more shocking.

Overall, the Liberals are becoming more and more unappealing and off-putting to modern Australia, especially urban voters with their positions on social issues. I say this as someone who was a Liberal follower in an urban area, but after the disaster of the 2025 election and the pretty pathetic direction post-2025, I feel the Liberals no longer represent me nor the average Australian. And I say with full certainty that there are many others across this country who share my sentiment.

Monique Ryan is going to walk over literally any Liberal challenger at this point. It’s clear that Kooyong is becoming more progressive and they want progressive policies like climate action whilst maintaining fiscally conservative ideas. No Liberal challenger can seriously say they speak for Kooyong when Josh Frydenberg lost this once ‘unloseable’ seat and Amelia Hamer couldn’t pull off an upset.

@James

I absolutely agree. I’ve given up hope on the Liberal Party and will effectively be a Labor voter for the foreseeable future.

Nicholas and James, at this stage it looks like the Australian political environment is resembling that during the immediate post WW2 years (1950s and 1960s) that featured the great DLP split with the Liberals under Robert Menzies governing for well over 2 decades.

The DLP split seems a lot like the current split of moderate, small ‘l’ Liberals from the party who have aligned with the teal movement.

There was a very recent poll that suggested almost a majority of Australians (a healthy plurality) don’t believe we are going to hit the net zero targets, do people really understand the magnitude of what the target represents and how few other major economies are making any sort of serious attempt at hitting it?

With the pretence of the Liberals supporting the target now gone (which ultimately just formalises what voters mostly already knew) we now no longer have consensus on net zero and the nature of the debate changes quite a lot. Now the Coalition can unleash the arguments about 2050’s true impact without having to also try and hang onto the policy. No one who is serious about climate policy has voted Liberal since Turnbull surely

@Maxim just because polling suggests that doesn’t mean most Australians believe that we should forget climate change entirely. The fact of the matter is many Australians have seen and experienced enough of it to know that it is a thing and that actions from all sides must happen to mitigate its effects. Most people want more renewable energy and barely any wants coal and even less nuclear. The Liberals’ energy policy is nothing more than a red herring for more coal, fossil fuels and increased emissions and they’ve even admitted that they prefer coal and gas and nuclear over renewables. That will not run well in the inner-city seats like Kooyong.

@tommo by everyone you mean a few well off people in the rich suburbs or melbourne and sydney. people want cheap affordable reliable electricity. i bet you the people who want reneables arent willing to pay for it. i mean how many of them pay their carbon offset on their flights? probably 0

@James According to Resolve, only 26% of all voters support binding net zero targets.

Ley’s position (net zero as an aspiration) is nowhere near ‘far right’, if anything it’s closer to the centre of public opinion than Albo and Labor’s policy.

Agree that this will be tough to win back but by no means will this permanently doom the Liberals in elections beyond 2028 (which they would almost certainly lose with or without net zero).

@Maxim Sums it up pretty well, this debate is still wide open with the public, especially with energy rebates expiring.

@scart policiy will change as the party does after each election

Ryan isn’t safe at this stage, Ryan is more of of a talker than doer, she has to get better at getting results.

If Hamer takes Malvern. Ryan should beat Frydenberg, however someone like Rachel Westaway or Steph Hunt could beat her

Hamer misses out on Malvern, she could beat Ryan, now just speculating, potentially worse for the Liberal Party, I am told the Hamers are pro-net zero. If Frydenberg having backed Blackwell for Malvern, rolls Hamer for Kooyong preselection, there’s a remote possibility Hamer could become the Teal MP for Kooyong, and if that happens, it will be a long time before the Liberal Party wins Kooyong.

This is based on the assumption Rob Baillieu wins Hawthorn.

I think Blackwell will probly beat Hamer. Hamer should focus on Kooyong

The kind of half in half out decision that the Liberals have taken with abandoning net zero yet staying in Paris appears very wishy-washy – even Pauline Hanson herself has called them out on it. Oh we’re abandoning net zero (even one without a timeframe), but we’re staying in the Paris Agreement and still want to reduce emissions but if net zero happens, it’s a welcome outcome?! So do they want it or not? Who really believes them on this?

At least if the aspiration was kept but without the timeframe, it would indicate that they don’t wish to rush it, but still actually appear serious about emissions reductions and addressing climate change. Junking net zero will be seen to not care for that at all, and staying in Paris despite it does not look sincere.

At least in the case of say One Nation, they don’t have any pretenses at all of wanting to support policies on emissions reductions, but the Liberals just look shifty on this issue. I have doubts that this is going to really bring back their “base” from One Nation either – I suspect many of them would say the same as Pauline and to get out of Paris as well.

The problem with the pro net zero Libs is that they seem to have no clear leader (Andrew Bragg possibly excepted) and as such they have no clear standard bearer to lead the fight – or even if it came to it – lead an exodus from the party room. No one obviously wants to be the first to go and presumably no one wants to be the one who turns out the lights, locks the door and hands the keys to the landlord. The strange thing here is that the state parties in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania are in the net zero camp. If there was a formal split, where do they go? It would seem that the best and cleanest thing that could have happened is that the anti net zero Libs defected to the National Party and the coalition splits. Frankly, I think the Libs are finished. What we do need in this country is a new centre right party – pro climate action, socially liberal, free market economics – not sure if it will happen though.

@redistributed I think you’ve just described the Teals perfectly. The issue is that they won’t become a party given that they might all have the same campaign colour but a lot of them diverge pretty significantly on various policies. E.g. They’re all pro-climate but Allegra Spender, Zali Steggall and Kate Chaney are very fiscal conservative (no surprises given their electorates), Monique Ryan is quite left wing and focuses on Health and Education whilst Sophie Scamps and Nicolette Boele are somewhere inbetween.

Both Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney – have to my mind – serious leadership potential – if they got together with Matt Kean, Andrew Bragg, Dave Sharma, Julian Leeser, Keith Wholohan – they would have an outifit with serious intellectual grunt.

As an LNP member I have made the difficult decision to involve myself in as little federal politics as possible until the net zero policy is reinstated. I will no longer attend federal Coalition events, but will continue to attend Coalition events for the state parties and the local councillors (with an obvious focus on Queensland events as I live on the Gold Coast).

Dumping net zero is a terrible idea and the party is cooked for 2028 and probably also 2031. They’ll probably pick up seats but they won’t come close to forming government until 2034. However, Albo will not last that long, he will be driven out by fatigue and unpopularity.

As for Sussan Ley, she’s sadly not competent enough to run the party. She succumbed to the pressure and now the party has dumped a key policy. I have nothing against her but this is her flaw: she can’t get the support of the party room.

If anyone has any questions let me know and I can answer them. Reddit will claim that they’ll never win any state/territory governments and that the Greens and One Nation will become opposition, but that isn’t true. This is a federal policy, and the Coalition will still win (and lose) state and territory governments depending on local issues. The Greens are effectively gonna be wiped out of the House, especially if the LNP to Labor swing continues. And One Nation, well they’re never winning any lower house seats anywhere.

Ryan gets along well with the other Teals, and I see Ryan as more of a wet liberal than a left winger.

@ nether portal
Please check out Berowra thread I have made some comments on Julian Leeser

Anyone who thinks the Teals are socially liberal is kidding themselves.

And aside from Spender, they’re not free market either.

Spenser and Chaney are the only ones I think are decent. Tbh

NP – why not remain in the federal party and apply pressure from within, rather than waiting for change from outside? The more that people like you stay and express their opinions and views, the less likely the Liberal Party will be captured by the right and go the way of the dodo.

Now that Amelia Hamer is the preselected candidate for Malvern (and is a shoo-in), we could expect ‘Will Josh Frydenberg run in Kooyong?’ speculation for the next two years.

I think it will depend on the state of the Liberal Party over this term. A challenge for him is that there are ‘I like you but not your party’ voters.