Old family links put a Fox among the Liberals in Kooyong

Lindsay Fox has alway been scrupulously even-handed about political donations. Australia’s richest truckie has already told Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton they’ll receive an equal measure of campaign funding from him and not a dollar more.

It is consistent with Fox’s oft-repeated election-time mantra that “I’m not Labor, I’m not Liberal, I’m Australian”.

Lindsay and Paula Fox have erected a campaign poster for Liberal candidate for Kooyong, Amelia Hamer, outside their Toorak home.Credit: Chris Hopkins

But this year, Fox has broken from a lifetime habit of sitting on the political fence to erect a campaign poster of the local Liberal candidate on his Toorak wall.

Thanks to the Australian Electoral Commission’s decision to abolish the seat of Higgins, Fox’s Toorak home is now in the electorate of Kooyong, the seat won by independent Monique Ryan from former treasurer Josh Frydenberg at the 2022 election.

Fox’s decision to put up a royal blue billboard of Amelia Hamer promising to “get Australia back on track” has added to the intrigue about whether, just three years after the teal rebellion, the empire could strike back in Kooyong.

Fox told this masthead his support for Hamer had more to do with mateship than his personal political leanings.

Lindsay Fox has told Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton they’ll receive equal campaign donations.Credit: AAP

Hamer’s great uncle was Sir Rupert Hamer, a long-serving Liberal premier of Victoria known to his friends as Dick. Fox counted himself as one of those friends.

“I was with him right up till the day he died,” he says. “If you were one of my good friends and one of your kids was going to stand for politics and you asked me to give them a leg up, I’d do it.”

As it happens, Fox’s wife, Paula, gave the OK for the sign to go up outside their Irving Road mansion. She remembered Amelia Hamer as a school friend of one of her granddaughters, Camilla Moore.

Amelia and Camilla were good friends when the pair did year 12 together at St Catherine’s. Although post-school life took them in different directions – Amelia moved to England to study at Oxford while Camilla found her station in the Linfox empire – Paula was happy to lend some of the family’s ample street frontage to help kickstart Hamer’s political career.

Kooyong branch members pre-selected Amelia Hamer hoping her famous family name would still ring out.Credit: Eddie Jim

Lindsay Fox says if Hamer’s people had come to him instead of Paula, he would have said yes. It is just as well. This masthead understands that Paula has an even bigger billboard on order from the Hamer campaign.

The battle for the hearts, minds and front yards of Kooyong voters is well under way. About 1000 Hamer signs have gone up outside private homes and businesses, and a Ryan campaign spokesman says her team has put up 100 real estate signs and 1800 corflutes.

Fox’s political outlook has always been shaped more by relationships than ideology.

One of his oldest and best friends is Labor luminary Bill Kelty. Over the years, he has been a staunch supporter of Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott, Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett and Labor premier Daniel Andrews. Once he considers you a mate, he is fiercely loyal.

This has created a dilemma for Fox ahead of this year’s contest between Albanese and Dutton. Fox describes both as friends. In April last year, both helped him celebrate his 87th birthday.

As Fox talks to this masthead, Paula interjects to announce she’s going to vote for Albanese. Fox is more cagey about his own intentions.

“If my wife votes for Albo, I’m going to have an each way bet for both of them. They are both extremely good blokes and they will represent Victoria extremely well.

A statue of former premier Sir Rupert Hamer stands outside No.1 Treasury Place.Credit: Scott McNaughton

“I won’t vote against a personal friend. In the case of two guys who are personal friends, I will do what is the appropriate thing.

“It will be an equal money bet. I will support both those people in the elections. They will get my support equally at the election. I have already told them that.”

Regardless of how Lindsay Fox votes and manages his campaign donations, his fond recollections about Rupert Hamer will give a boost to Liberal strategists hoping to reclaim Kooyong.

Hamer was a small-l Liberal in the classically Victorian tradition – a tradition whose disappearance from the party’s modern ranks helped fuel the teal movement.

The Kooyong party branch membership preselected Amelia Hamer hoping her name would ring out in places such as Kew, Canterbury and Camberwell. That was before the Australian Electoral Commission redrew the electoral boundaries to include some of the deepest blue polling places from the former seat of Higgins.

Rupert Hamer served as Victorian premier between 1972 and 1981 and in 1975, led the Liberals to their largest electoral victory in the state. A social reformer and environmentalist, he abolished capital punishment, decriminalised homosexuality and established the Environment Protection Authority.

Fox says he doesn’t know Amelia Hamer or her politics but is happy to endorse her campaign. “I have no issue with someone with the name of Hamer.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.