Josh Frydenberg settles Kooyong question for now but not forever

Teal MP Monique Ryan and former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

Josh Frydenberg’s announcement he won’t run for Kooyong at the next election is confirmation of the obvious.

His best eventual path to returning to federal parliament may well even be outside his old seat, even if it has merged with large parts of the soon-to-be-old electorate of Higgins.

Frydenberg has ambition but also time on his side.

There is real anger with the way the Victorian Liberal Party has handled these preselections, which were decided before the redistribution was handed down, creating problems for both Frydenberg and the former member for Higgins Katie Allen.

Those close to Frydenberg - even as recently as Monday - remained hopeful that he would run but the fallout from any new preselection would have been seismic.

Monday’s announcement doesn’t mean that Frydenberg is against a return to Federal Parliament, rather the question is how he can successfully engineer it.

He used social media to make a brief statement about his intentions: “Re the recent speculation about Kooyong: I am not rushing back to politics, my position on contesting the next election remains unchanged. I will continue to support the Liberal Party and our local candidate Amelia Hamer.’’

Re the recent speculation about Kooyong: I am not rushing back to politics, my position on contesting the next election remains unchanged. I will continue to support the Liberal Party and our local candidate Amelia Hamer.

— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) June 3, 2024

It is possible that the Victorian Liberal Party has bottomed out after years of profound under performing.

But the evidence of how it is travelling will only be known once the next election is held, making it an even bigger gamble for Frydenberg to stake his future in an uncertain electoral environment.

Frydenberg, unlike most former MPs, has walked into a highly lucrative private sector job, that could set him up for life.

The anecdotal and polling evidence suggests that Victoria’s love affair with the Labor Party may well have peaked, fuelled by the collapse of the Victorian finances.

How much the state’s wrecked budget feeds into federal issues is always hard to gauge.

In 1990, when there was a vicious backlash against federal Labor on the back of state issues, the actual economy was in crisis.

This is not the case in 2024 although broad cost of living issues will be powerfully important at the next federal poll.

The experts are arguing over just how advantageous the new redistribution might be for the Liberal Party but there are other questions to be asked.

A slightly better landscape doesn’t kill-off the challenges faced by the Liberals in inner city seats.

Nor does it address the question of how the teal Monique Ryan is travelling in the seat she won off Frydenberg at the last election.

There are layers of oddness around the Ryan political machine.

But she is not to be underestimated; she is ubiquitous in her seat and has never really stopped campaigning since she was elected, even if some of that campaigning is pretty shameless.

For example, the advertising around Melbourne’s Swinburne University calling for cuts to HECS; Swinburne is the new ground zero for Kooyong, even if the seat has been sucked into Toorak and Malvern, which was once Liberal heartland.

Remember that Labor picked up Higgins at the last election, so there is nothing to say it won’t keep voting Left.

The next, relevant question, might well be who is the best person to represent Kooyong?

The obvious answer is Frydenberg, who at 52 would be ready immediately to lead the party.

But let’s not forget that the Liberals’ Amelia Hamer, the 31-year-old Oxford-educated grandniece of former Victorian premier Dick Hamer, already has been endorsed for Kooyong.

She is an excellent candidate who, on paper, will struggle against the teal machine.

Like Frydenberg, she has time on her side.

One more electoral cycle will not kill either’s ambition.