Victoria’s bluest of blue ribbon seats turn backs on history

The Liberal Party looks like holding just seven of Victoria’s 39 federal seats.

Rachel BaxendaleVICTORIAN POLITICAL REPORTER

less than 2 min read

8:47PMMay 22, 2022

Former prime minister John Howard with then Liberal MP for Higgins Katie Allen at a polling station in Malvern, Melbourne. Picture: Ian Currie

Toorak now has a Labor MP while Brighton and Kew are represented by teal independents, after voters in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs delivered a verdict that Victorian Liberal insiders say will force them to choose between irrelevance and radical reinvention.

At least four Victorian seats have changed hands – all previously Liberal and all in Melbourne’s leafy east.

They include Higgins and Chisholm, which have gone to Labor, and Josh Frydenberg’s seat of Kooyong and junior minister Tim Wilson’s seat of Goldstein, which have been won by teal candidates Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel.

Loss of Josh Frydenberg would be a 'disaster for the Liberal Party'

In a fifth seat, former assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar was on Sunday night 1077 votes behind Labor lawyer Matt Gregg in Deakin, in Melbourne’s outer east.

The race remains tight in a sixth eastern suburbs seat, Menzies, where Cambridge-educated former barrister Keith Wolahan was 624 votes ahead of Labor’s former police officer Naomi Oakley to take over the seat held by retiring Liberal Kevin Andrews.

Labor MP Josh Burns had been fearful of losing his Melbourne ports electorate of Macnamara to the Greens but with postal votes breaking strongly in his favour, the ALP was increasingly confident of holding it.

The Liberals look like holding just seven of Victoria’s 39 lower house seats and the Coalition a total of 10, with the addition of a status quo result for the Nationals of three seats.

The loss of Higgins, Kooyong and Goldstein in particular represents a seismic upheaval for Victorian Liberals.

Higgins, previously held by Harold Holt, John Gorton and Peter Costello and Liberal since its establishment in 1949, was the bluest of blue ribbon seats but a deeply unpopular PM and a demographic change saw Katie Allen trailing Labor’s Michelle Ananda-Rajah by 4268 votes on Sunday.