When the Victorian state Liberal MP John Pesutto lost the seat of Hawthorn to Labor in 2018, live on television, few at the time would have expected it was a harbinger for the party’s federal fate four years later.
Hawthorn, in Melbourne’s inner-east, sits entirely within the federal seat of Kooyong, where the independent Monique Ryan toppled the then treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in May. As the electorate of the Liberal party founder, Robert Menzies, Kooyong’s loss prompted intense soul-searching within the party.
