Armstrong: A Josh Frydenberg tilt for the Liberals in Kooyong is not as simple as new lines on an electoral map

A redrawn electoral map isn’t the only barrier for a potential return to politics for Josh Frydenberg, writes Clare Armstrong.

A few new lines on an electoral map is all it has taken for the Liberals to seriously contemplate throwing over a young female candidate in favour of former treasurer and leadership hopeful Josh Frydenberg, but his supporters may want to check the fine print.

The Australian Electoral Commission’s proposed new electorate boundaries for Victoria have sent the Liberal Party into a flurry amid speculation the adjusted map has tipped Mr Frydenberg’s former seat of Kooyong into their favour.

Queensland Liberal MP Karen Andrews was the first senior figure to publicly back a return to politics for Mr Frydenberg.

She’s pointed to his experience around the cabinet table, advocacy around the issue of anti-semitism and economic understanding as the skills the Liberals need in their team both leading up to and after the next federal election.

Mr Frydenberg was not giving away anything over the weekend, but it is difficult to imagine he isn’t pouring over the AEC’s draft proposal released on Friday.

Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg has not ruled out another tilt at politics in his old seat of Kooyong. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

The dissolution of Higgins into largely neighbouring Chisholm and Kooyong has sparked talk of Mr Frydenberg making another tilt for preselection, but for a Liberal in Melbourne there is no such thing as a “safe seat” these days.

Elsewhere the boundary redraws have left the Liberals’ only remaining Melbourne seats – Menzies and Deakin – on wafer-thin margins.

With such lacklustre prospects, it would be quite the gamble to quit a senior position at an investment bank in the hopes of rejoining the ranks of the Coalition as a Victorian Liberal.

Amelia Hamer has been preselected for Kooyong.

Even supporters of Mr Frydenberg are quick to acknowledge they would not expect him to throw his hand up for anything less than a sure-thing – or as close to one as the cutthroat world of politics can afford.

But detractors of the former treasurer argue it’s this assurance-seeking tactic that makes him, in the very least, a risky candidate choice.

One Liberal source said many members would “rightly” be worried that one bad poll or a less favourable finalised boundary redraw in October would prompt Mr Frydenberg to “pull the pin” on his candidacy.

Still many Liberal MPs are hopeful Mr Frydenberg will take the leap and be able to offer the party an alternate option as a future leader.

In the main these backers are confident current Kooyong candidate, Amelia Hamer, will see reason and stand aside if asked.

Those who support the 31-year-old Oxford graduate, who won preselection in March and has been campaigning full-time ever since, are enraged by this line of thinking.

One Liberal said it was “outrageous” for members of the party to expect Ms Hamer to politely step aside for someone who only appeared interested in the seat as it became more “winnable”.

“Every day Josh won’t rule himself out of running hurts Amelia’s campaign,” another Liberal said.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Mortlock, founder of advocacy group Hilma’s Network helping Liberal women, has boldly gone on the record with her criticisms where other party members would not.

She described reopening up to five preselections in Victoria because “one person has had a change of heart” as “self-indulgent, expensive and bad strategy”.

Liberal candidate for Kooyong Amelia Hamer has been campaigning for the last few months. Picture: Instagram

Both Liberals for and against Mr Frydenberg returning to politics agree the situation must be resolved soon and cannot wait until the electorate redraws are finalised in October.

“We could be in an election by December, this has to be sorted well before then,” one Liberal source said.

But few seem to have properly considered the question of whether the seat actually is notionally is easier to win for the Liberals.

As part of the redistribution some 30,000 voters, mostly from the blue ribbon Liberal strongholds of Toorak, Armadale and Malvern, have been moved into Kooyong.

In the initial flurry of reaction to the AEC’s draft redraw, many commentators attributed their belief the seat had become more favourable for the Liberals to the ABC’s famed election analyst Antony Green.

Based on a straight vote transfer of the 2022 election results laid over the area of Higgins that will now become Kooyong, Mr Green calculated there margin between an Independent and Liberal would drop from 2.9 per cent to 0.8 per cent.

The prospect of current Independent MP Monique Ryan suffering such a substantial swing ignited debate within the Liberals about how much more achievable it would now be to oust her from the seat.

But on Sunday Mr Green added an update to his blog post discussing the proposed federal boundaries for Victoria with a rather important asterisk.

He said he had removed the margin for Kooyong from his earlier results as it was “being quoted as suggesting the Liberal position in Kooyong has been significantly improved”.

“That is not my opinion,” he said.

So what does the election expert really think? Well in bad news for either Ms Hamer or Mr Frydenberg, he said a more “realistic” result taking into account the incumbent independent MP would be a movement that “slightly improves” Ms Ryan’s margin versus the Liberal Party.

Oh dear.