Frydenberg all but concedes as numbers show victory for Ryan in Kooyong

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has lost the seat of Kooyong to “teal” independent Monique Ryan, but hinted broadly that he planned to return to politics some time in the future.

Frydenberg, who would have been a strong candidate for the Liberal leadership after the party’s rout at the election, effectively conceded defeat late on Saturday night. However, he ended an emotional speech to supporters by declaring he still had “a lot left in the tank”.

Frydenberg said it was “still mathematically possible to win in Kooyong” as there were thousands of postal votes yet to be counted.

“But it’s difficult,” he admitted, before launching into a speech that placed his career and his achievements in the past tense, indicating he had already accepted the electorate was lost.

Declaring that his wife Amie was an “extraordinary mother” to their two children, he added “now I might get a bit of time to be an extraordinary dad”.

He spoke at length about his pride in having overseen the world’s fastest economic recovery from the COVID pandemic.

“I’ll be proud of that until the end of time,” he said. “In what looks to have been my last press conference as Treasurer, I was able to announce that Australia now had an unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent,” he said to cheers from the crowd of several hundred Liberal supporters packed into the Grace Park Hawthorn Club.

A number of his supporters cried openly as he spoke, though most cheered and offered their best wishes.

Frydenberg did not refer to the teal candidate who has all but certainly beaten him in the election, paediatric neurologist Monique Ryan.

Ryan addressed hundreds of her supporters minutes after Frydenberg admitted it would be difficult for him to retain Kooyong.

“We don’t have a concession ... But I think we know where we stand,” she said. “We’ve made history tonight. Together.”

“I didn’t write a victory speech. I wrote a concession speech and it said ‘whatever happens, we’ll always have Kooyong 2022’. The government wasn’t listening to us, so we changed the government.”

Frydenberg paid tribute to prime minister Scott Morrison, who is being blamed for the Coalition’s loss, even though he had tried to distance himself from the PM during the six-week election campaign.

Morrison, he said, was “a person of great dignity, a man who loves his family, a person of faith and a great leader”. He thanked Morrison for “leaving our country better than when he came to the leadership”.

Frydenberg’s comments did not receive universal agreement – a man in a Liberal jumper leaned towards this reporter and said Kooyong “didn’t vote against Josh – it was that bloody Morrison”.

With 42 of the 45 booths in Kooyong counted, Frydenberg was on a primary vote of 41.54 per cent and Monique Ryan was on 41.68 per cent.

With preferences taken into account, this placed Ryan almost 9 points ahead of Frydenberg, with a projected two-party preferred vote of 54.53 per cent to Frydenberg’s 45.47. With 16,000 postal votes still to be counted, Frydenberg’s expressed hope of an unlikely win seemed out of reach.

Ryan told The Age she was taken aback that her primary vote was above 40 per cent.

“I didn’t think I’d get it,” she said. “I’ve come from nowhere.

“It’s extraordinary. I can’t believe it.”

“There’s a sense of anticipation. We’ve done the work. We’ve done an incredible job and I’m a bit sad the adventure is drawing to a close. Now we cross our fingers.”

Ryan was in a private room with her advisers until about 9pm when she came downstairs at the Auburn Hotel to speak to her supporters.

Her brother, Peter, cried in her arms.

“I might actually do it,” she said.

Frydenberg spent the evening at home before arriving at his campaign function in Hawthorn at 10pm.

Earlier, Frydenberg had declared himself confident of fending off Ryan, whose challenge turned Kooyong into a serious contest for the first time in history.

Frydenberg criss-crossed the electorate early on Saturday, hammering his “keep Josh” message.

The slogan was introduced halfway through the six-week election campaign in an attempt to differentiate him from Morrison, who is unpopular in the inner-east Melbourne seat, where many voters are fiscally conservative but socially progressive.

Peter Dutton now appears in the box seat to become leader, as Scott Morrison announced in his concession speech late on Saturday that he would stand down as leader at the next party room meeting.

Frydenberg, while his hopes were still intact, voted early in Balwyn North, a solidly middle-class part of the electorate where there are more blue posters than teal ones.

“There’s a good mood out there on the booths. It’s a long day, it’s been a long campaign,” he said, declaring himself confident he would remain the member for Kooyong.

Cut through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.