Election 2022: ‘Frontrunner’ Monique Ryan failed to win but kept her footing

Kooyong independent candidate Monique Ryan on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

The Kooyong debate is best viewed through the prism that Monique Ryan is the notional frontrunner to win the seat.

This is how far Ryan has progressed since she quit her day job on Christmas Eve to run against one of the most capable federal politicians the Liberal Party has groomed in the past 20 or so years.

Ryan, in my view, did not win the debate; Josh Frydenberg was technically stronger, more confident and largely stuck to his strategy of playing the politics and not the pediatrician. What Ryan did, though, is keep her feet and acquit herself sufficiently well to survive another day.

Already a high achiever in medicine, the Sky News debate on Thursday enabled her to elevate herself as a serious contender for a serious seat.

Her strengths were on health spending, her motivation for being in politics, and the criticism of the government’s preparations for the pandemic on vaccinations, quarantine and aged care.

You could see, she said, “the tsunami coming” as the pandemic gathered momentum.

Ryan was understandably more nervous and less sure of herself on live TV and revealed herself as being significantly more left-wing than most would have expected.

Critical of the government’s position on China, she declared that the Coalition had done “nothing good for us in the last nine years”.

Seen from the floor of the chandelier room at the old Hawthorn town hall, the exchanges were at times tense but largely civil.

One old TV hand said the tension between the two was clearer on the screen than it was in the room.

For Frydenberg, there were probably few votes to be won from confronting Ryan on live television.

The chief advantage is that he has managed to flush her out on the economy and expose her to proper scrutiny on macro political issues such as China, further exploring where the Ryan campaign is going.

It is a niche campaign.

Climate, integrity, equal pay for women, public housing, protection of refugees.

All issues hard to argue against but also a policy portfolio that could easily have been advanced by the last Greens candidate, Julian Burnside, or even Peter Singer way back in 1994.

This, too, will give Frydenberg some room to move.

While Ryan is notionally the frontrunner as Frydenberg battles to keep his primary vote above 45 per cent, he now has an even clearer idea of his opponent.

How, fundamentally, do her values align with the broader Kooyong community?

Few would argue against the intent of Ryan’s political compassion but her challenge will be marrying two communities; old Kooyong and new Kooyong.

To that end, the debate did not hinder either candidate’s prospects.