Greens in hunt for candidate as Julian Burnside quits
Julian Burnside has abandoned his attempts to win Kooyong in a blow to the Greens’ attempts to seize the heartland Liberal seat.
Melbourne barrister Julian Burnside has formally abandoned his attempts to win Kooyong in a blow to the Greens’ attempts to seize the heartland Liberal seat.
It comes as Mr Burnside has been embroiled in controversy over family tweets targeting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians and Josh Frydenberg’s ethnicity.
Mr Burnside told The Australian he had let the Greens know last month he wouldn’t be contesting the seat, which has become increasingly challenging for the Liberal Party because of changing demographics and a greater focus on climate change among well-heeled residents.
Asked whether he would be running again in Kooyong, Mr Burnside said: “No I’m not: I gave them my decision a few weeks ago.”
The decision comes as he has faced intense political heat in the past week after comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, while his partner, Kate Durham, dismissed the federal Treasurer as “just a Hungarian”.
Mr Burnside is still involved with the Greens and is to host a Greens’ function on the economy and Covid-19 later this month.
A prominent human rights lawyer, Mr Burnside’s star factor helped swell his election campaign coffers in 2019, while another independent, Oliver Yates, spent close to $500,000 on his 2019 campaign. Mr Yates did not respond to The Australian.
Kooyong is an inner-eastern Melbourne seat that traditionally was a Liberal stronghold, but the Liberals were forced to pour in as much as $1.5m to shore up the win at the last election.
Mr Burnside ran for preselection to take Richard Di Natale’s vacant Senate position last year.
The Liberal Party is uncertain about the impact of Mr Burnside’s decision not to run, with one senior strategist questioning whether his conspicuous wealth in Hawthorn was a good fit for the Greens’ demographic.
“I’m not sure whether it’s what young people want,’’ the strategist said.
Mr Burnside’s history of human rights activism, support for the ABC and other left causes was embraced in pockets of the seat, particularly near Swinburne University and the Glenferrie Primary School booth, which has become increasingly multicultural in the past 20 years.
The Jewish community savaged Mr Burnside after he tweeted last Thursday that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “looks horribly like the German treatment of the Jews” during World War II. In 2018, Mr Burnside posted an image of Liberal frontbencher Peter Dutton with his face superimposed on a Nazi officer in a uniform.
This week, Ms Durham deleted and apologised for a tweet that was interpreted as being anti-Semitic and an attack on Mr Frydenberg’s ancestry days after Mr Burnside’s tweet was published.
Ms Durham had responded to a tweet by the Treasurer by saying: “As I told you once, I suspect Burnside knows more about the Holocaust and its subsequent trials than you. As a teen, the Holocaust propelled him into a concern for human rights & refugees, which can’t be said of you, Your (sic) just a Hungarian, just a Liberal. #Fraudenberg.”
Labor is expected to endorse party loyalist Peter Lynch for what is seen as an unwinnable seat for the ALP.
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