I’m no nepo-baby: The plan to wrest back a blue-ribbon Liberal seat from a teal

Female, a finance professional, Millennial and a renter: Amelia Hamer represents the very demographic that helped topple former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the inner-Melbourne seat of Kooyong at the last federal election.

Last weekend the Liberal Party overwhelmingly endorsed the 31-year-old from a prominent political dynasty to win back the seat that had – until 2022 – been in conservative hands since Federation.

Amelia Hamer with her dog Juno. She will take on teal Monique Ryan as the Liberal Party’s candidate for Josh Frydenberg’s former seat of Kooyong. Credit: Eddie Jim

Hamer is the grandniece of former Victorian premier Rupert “Dick” Hamer – Uncle Dick, as she says fondly. Her grandfather, David Hamer, was a senator for Victoria and her great-grandfather, Sir William McPherson, served as Victorian premier in the late 1920s.

But she wants voters to know one thing: She’s not a nepo-baby.

The term is often used to criticise the children or grandchildren of politicians or celebrities whose connections and privileges gave them a professional leg-up.

Oxford-educated Hamer – who got her first job at a local Priceline pharmacy and made her way to the trading floor of the London Stock Exchange – questions whether her dynastic edge would be used against her if she was a man.

“That’s something that people always like to say about women, right?

“They say, ‘Oh well, they couldn’t have got there on their own steam, they must be some kind of nepo-baby.’

“I’ve worked hard my whole life ... worked 12-to-15-hour days in London in high-pressure environments, would people be saying this if I was a man?”

Hamer may reject the impact of her political pedigree on her thumping preselection win, but her great uncle – widely credited with modernising the Liberal Party during nine years as premier – is shaping the way she approaches her campaign as she tries to wrest back the seat from teal MP Monique Ryan.

“Uncle Dick was just such a wonderful person,” she told The Age from the Barton Milk Bar in suburban Hawthorn.

“When you spoke to him, he’d make you feel like you were the most important person in the room and I think that’s an art in politics that has been lost.”

In that spirit, Hamer said there won’t be any “cat fighting” between her and Ryan, insisting one of the primary reasons the party lost the seat of Kooyong was tone.

“I think people were upset with the tone of politics,” she said.

“They wanted to feel represented as a community and I don’t think they felt that. I think we need to learn those lessons.”

When asked what she thinks of her teal political opponent – who took the seat off Frydenberg with a margin of 6 per cent after coming second in the primary vote – Hamer is complimentary.

“Well she unseated a sitting treasurer, and I admire her conviction,” Hamer said.

“We just have a difference of opinion on a number of issues and possibly a difference of approach.

“To me what’s very important is that politics is respectful and we are debating the ideas. That’s the tone I want to bring to politics.”

Ryan was one of six so-called teal independents to unseat Liberal MPs in May 2022 on the back of a hostility – particularly from younger voters and women – towards the Morrison government and policy concerns over integrity and climate change.

Frydenberg received 42.7 per cent of the primary vote – more than Ryan’s 40.3 per cent – but lost on preferences.

Shifting demographics in the once-blue-ribbon Melbourne electorate means Hamer will need to win the support of younger voters, especially Generation Z, who overwhelmingly do not vote for the Coalition.

Kos Samaras, the director of polling group RedBridge – the pollster for Climate 200, which supported the teal candidates – believes Hamer will need to record a primary vote in the mid-40s at the next federal election, which is due by 2025. An estimated 3500 more voters aged between 18 and 24 are expected to be on the electoral roll in Kooyong by polling day.

“Every generation is voting Liberal less than the generation before,” Hamer said. “If we don’t fix that we are dead and we are dead in Victoria.”

To win back younger voters, Hamer has vowed to spend more time listening to those in their 20s and early 30s. She also hopes to convince voters in their 30s and 40s that the Liberal Party will be better at managing the economy, promising to lobby to eliminate tax thresholds that hamper aspiration.

In terms of policies, she said indexing the thresholds at which marginal tax rates change to negate bracket creep should be “on the table”.

“I think it's an interesting thing, and they should be considering it,” Hamer said.

She also thinks the government should “iron out” income thresholds that penalise mothers from returning to work after having children.

“We have created disincentives in the system,” she said.