They say they ‘need’ Frydenberg. There’s an awkward problem with his return

The rush to restore Josh Frydenberg to federal parliament looks like a sure victory to Liberals who believe the former treasurer can defeat “teal” independents like Monique Ryan and help the party regain federal power.

But the campaign looks like a huge risk when anyone stops to think about the woman who gets shoved aside in the stampede.

Credit: Artwork — Marija Ercegovac

Amelia Hamer, the 31-year-old Oxford-educated grand-niece of former Victorian premier Sir Rupert “Dick” Hamer, won the right to be the Liberal Party candidate for Kooyong, in the wealthiest parts of Melbourne, by 233 to 59 votes only nine weeks ago.

Now the Frydenberg support squad believes she must give up that right for the man who lost the seat to Ryan and the teal steamroller at the last election.

That is why it is so significant that a senior Liberal woman, former cabinet minister Karen Andrews, went public on Sunday afternoon to back the former treasurer.

“Josh Frydenberg, in my view, is someone we need to bring back into the Liberal Party and into federal politics,” Andrews told this masthead.

“I think that we now have the opportunity to revisit what has been happening in Victoria, to look at about where and how we could possibly get Josh Frydenberg back into federal parliament.”

Karen Andrews is the first senior Liberal to go on the record about a Josh Frydenberg return.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Nobody will say it publicly, but this has implications across the Liberal factions. Many see Frydenberg as a future leader and an obvious alternative to the incumbent, Peter Dutton. If the Liberals do not retake government at the end of this parliament, they want someone to turn to in the next.

In public, Dutton welcomes the idea of Frydenberg’s return. In private, every Liberal knows that Frydenberg sees himself as a future party leader.

Another concern is that the Liberals are not making enough headway in the economic argument with Labor, even when the cost of living is an enormous pressure point for voters. Those who are unhappy with Angus Taylor as treasury spokesman want to advance Frydenberg as a stronger voice on the economy.

Frydenberg is yet to decide whether to declare his interest in Kooyong, which he won in 2010 and held at three subsequent elections, but he is weighing up his options and some Liberals say he would be mad to miss this chance.

As a former deputy leader of the Liberal Party and cabinet minister for seven years, including as treasurer during the pandemic, he has widespread support in the party and is almost certain to have the numbers if the party votes on its preferred candidate.

The key point, however, is that the party has already elected its candidate. And Frydenberg chose not to run.

What changed? The Australian Electoral Commission announced last Friday that it planned to abolish the federal seat of Higgins and expand the seats nearby, which means 30,000 voters move into Kooyong.

The AEC draft decision, which could be challenged by political parties before being finalised in coming months, moved about 30,000 voters from Liberal strongholds such as Armadale, Toorak and Malvern and put them in Kooyong.

ABC election analyst Antony Green posted estimates late on Friday that suggested Kooyong would be an even tighter contest between the Liberals and Ryan.

Liberals have talked about polling over the past year that shows Frydenberg could retake the seat on the current borders, let alone the new ones. Nobody can test these claims.

And the idea that 30,000 voters are about to move into Kooyong and give the Liberals a boost certainly needs to be tested. Will these people show any loyalty to the Liberals? Or will they shift to Ryan once she becomes their local member? The way the booths voted in 2022 does not tell us how they will vote with different candidates in 2025. (Yes, or in late 2024).

What is lost in all these calculations, is the reaction from voters if the Liberals dump the young woman they have chosen for Kooyong.

Charlotte Mortlock, a key figure in the campaign to draft more Liberal women into parliament, is “livid” at the idea that Frydenberg can set aside the overwhelming vote for Hamer in March.

“He can’t decide, months after the preselection, that now it looks better for him and he wants to throw his hat in the ring,” she says.

Mortlock, who founded advocacy group Hilma’s Network to encourage Liberal women, says Hamer is the sort of candidate the party needed to bring women and others back to the Liberals after several prominent Liberal men lost their seats at the last election.

Fiona Martin, who won a marginal Sydney seat for the Liberals at the 2019 election, is also unimpressed.

“It is not a good idea to push aside a well-educated, professional woman who was preselected only in March in order to recycle a senior Morrison government cabinet minister who had his opportunity,” she says.

Amelia Hamer, the 31-year-old Oxford-educated grand-niece of former Victorian premier Sir Rupert “Dick” Hamer, won preselection to replace Frydenberg in Kooyong.Credit: Eddie Jim

Martin, who will not renew her Liberal Party membership, believes the party needs systemic change to encourage more women and that bringing back a big personality like Frydenberg will not fix these underlying problems.

Ryan won 52.9 per cent of the vote in two-party terms at the last election, with some Liberals saying former Scott Morrison dragged down their vote among women. Frydenberg lost by 6,035 votes against the “teal” campaign on climate change, public integrity and putting women into parliament.

Any decision on Kooyong is likely to wait until the AEC finalises the Victorian changes, which are also expected to weaken the Liberal Party’s hold on other Melbourne seats such as Deakin and Menzies.

The key decision on Friday, to remove the electorate of Higgins, leaves incumbent Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah in limbo and means the former Liberal member for Higgins, paediatrician Katie Allen, must reconsider her options.

The new borders could make the electorate of Chisholm easier for the Liberals to win, raising conjecture about whether they seek an alternative candidate to Theo Zographos, who was elected unopposed in a Liberal preselection earlier this year.

Liberals said on Sunday that Allen had not given up on her quest to return to parliament and was a strong contender for Chisholm, which would include about one third of the electorate of Higgins on the new borders. This would also involve dumping a chosen candidate.

But the contest in Kooyong is the main event. This Liberal powerplay has everything: the proven campaigner against the young contender, the anger from women who are told to make way for men, and the prospect of Frydenberg staking his claim to the Liberal leadership.

The likely outcome is that Ryan will have a bigger fight on her hands in Kooyong. And, one day, Dutton may have an almighty contest in the Liberal party room.

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