How appropriate that Josh Frydenberg is being touted as a candidate for his old seat of Kooyong because of the neighbouring electorate of Higgins. A Frydenberg candidacy would be at the expense of Amelia Hamer, the young woman preselected for Kooyong because Frydenberg has already declined to try a comeback.
But the looming abolition of the seat of Higgins — which Labor jagged in 2022 amid carnage in Victoria for the Liberals — will see a large chunk of that electorate shifted into Kooyong, including some big Liberal booths in places like Malvern (albeit with some strong Labor booths in Prahran). Suddenly Monique Ryan’s hold on the seat looks less certain.
Frydenberg wouldn’t have a return bout with Ryan because Kooyong was lineball on the existing boundaries. But with the seat looking more winnable, some Liberals — some — think the former treasurer should push Hamer aside.
Higgins, famously, was Peter Costello’s seat, from 1990 when he knocked off moderate (and David Lee Roth’s godfather) Roger Shipton as part of the steady purging of small-l Liberals in the 1980s and 1990s. Costello liked to see himself as the next Keating — the ferocious political attack dog, reforming treasurer and coming prime minister. He certainly had the attack dog part down pat. One of his famous lines, uttered with the trademark smirk, was aimed at Kim Beazley: “No ticker, no start.”
How the Liberals laughed at the old union line turned against the Labor leader.
Problem was, Costello was better describing himself than Beazley. Costello certainly talked the talk about bringing down John Howard Keating-style, but couldn’t walk the walk. Even as Howard’s government fell apart during the 2007 APEC meeting, a leadership challenge remained, for Costello, the stuff of banter over the fourth bottle of wine with journalists.
Frydenberg has a similar touch. When the Liberals, and the country, and their media allies, were crying out for someone to get rid of Scott Morrison, neither Frydenberg nor Peter Dutton would step up. But in the words of Andrew Bolt, “Frydenberg is a get-along guy not known to stand for much outside his portfolio; while Dutton is an in-your-face fighter”. Dutton took over after the election in the unenviable job of first-term opposition leader and, regardless of what you think of his methods, has slowly dragged the Coalition back to being competitive, even if it’s hard to see a Coalition majority at the next election.
Nor would Frydenberg step up while Kooyong looked tricky. Rather than go and fight hard for his old seat and restore it to the Liberal fold, he preferred to head to Goldman Sachs and leave the task of taking on Ryan on the streets of Hawthorn to someone else.
No ticker, no start.
The virtues of a Frydenberg return to Parliament for the Liberals are exactly two: he would make a better shadow treasurer or treasurer than Where’s Angus, and he increases their leadership options to two. But that also makes for leadership tension. Dutton would know that Frydenberg lacks the aggression to go after him, but every time there’s a bad poll, every time there’s yet another policy lurch to the right or concession to the Nationals, the few remaining moderates in the party would start elbowing Frydenberg — futilely.
But knifing a woman because you think you’re suddenly in with a chance to win your old seat back from a teal independent? Maybe that’s within Frydenberg’s skill set. Whether Kooyong voters think that’s acceptable, however, is another thing.
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