By Noel Towell
Former Liberal MP for the former jewel-in-the-Liberal-crown seat of Higgins Katie Allen has won the right to take on Labor’s Michelle Ananda-Rajah in a rematch of the electoral contest last year in the upper-crust inner south-east seat that saw the ALP end decades of Liberal dominance.
Allen saw off a challenge from former Port Phillip Council Mayor Marcus Pearl in a preselection ballot at Hawthorn Town Hall on Sunday afternoon.
Katie Allen wants another crack at her former seat.Credit: Jason South
Pearl was in decent spirits though when we caught up with him after the vote. “I felt it was close, but it wasn’t close enough,” he told us.
Allen warned CBD to prepare to hear a lot from her as she launches full-time into the task of winning back the seat.
Elsewhere, Monash councillor Theo Zographos was nominated unopposed earlier this month to run for the Liberals in Chisholm, another seat they wouldn’t mind getting back from Labor, with Zographos’ candidacy just waiting to be ticked off by his party’s administrative committee.
But what about Goldstein, another of the painful Liberal losses of 2022, which fell to teal independent Zoe Daniel last year and where the beaten Liberal Tim Wilson has made no secret of his desire for a re-match with the former ABC journo.
But does the party’s leadership share Wilson’s confidence? The powers that be don’t seem to be in any hurry to close off nominations, which have been open for months and talk just won’t go away that state MP for Brighton James Newbury is interested.
We couldn’t track down Newbury on Sunday for a comment – ever get that feeling you’re being ghosted? – and neither Wilson, nor one of the other Liberal figures who have been linked with the seat, Colleen Harkin, while former Julie Bishop staffer Stephanie Hunt gave us a firm no-comment.
But a tilt at Goldstein carries risks for Newbury; he’d have to give up his seat in Spring Street and his spot on John Pesutto’s front bench with no guarantee even of preselection, much less knocking over the first-term incumbent Daniel.
Still, the chance to return to the federal parliament, where Newbury spent happy years as a staffer in John Howard’s government, is said to be a powerful temptation for the Brighton second-termer.
So many questions, right, so we gave the party’s state president Phil Davis a shout, asking when he and his colleagues might be thinking about bringing all this to a vote.
He was a little more forthcoming than the others. But not much. “I have nothing to say,” Davis told us.
Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.