Seats of the week: Kooyong and Higgins

A double dose of the Liberal Party’s inner eastern Melbourne heartland, encompassing the seats held by Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer.

Kooyong

Blue and red numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Liberal and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Presently covering Melbourne’s affluent inner east from Kew and Hawthorn eastwards to Balwyn North and Camberwell, Kooyong has been held by the prevailing conservative forces of the day without interruption since its creation at federation, including by Robert Menzies throughout his 31-year career in federal parliament. The seat has had only seven members in its long history, of whom the first two were William Knox and Robert Best, the latter succeeding the former in 1910. Best was defeated as Nationalist candidate at the 1922 election by conservative independent John Latham, who ran in opposition to the prime ministership of Billy Hughes. With that end accomplished by an election that left the anti-Hughes Country Party holding the balance of power, Latham in time joined the Nationalists and served as Attorney-General in Stanley Bruce’s government from 1925 until its defeat in 1929. Bruce’s loss of his seat of Flinders at that election saw Latham emerge as Opposition Leader, but the defeat of the Labor government two years later was effected when Joseph Lyons led Labor defectors into a merger with conservative forces as the United Australia Party, with Latham agreeing to serve as Lyons’s deputy. Latham served as Attorney-General and External Affairs Minister in the Lyons government from 1931 until his retirement at the 1934 election, and a year later was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court.

Latham’s successor as both member for Kooyong and Attorney-General was Robert Menzies, who had been a state parliamentarian since 1928 and Deputy Premier since 1932. Menzies ascended to the prime minister after Joseph Lyons’ death in April 1939, serving for two years as the nation’s wartime leader before resigning in August 1941 after losing the support of his cabinet colleagues. Following Labor’s landslide win at the 1943 election, Menzies returned to the leadership of the United Australia Party which had been held in the interim by Billy Hughes, and brought fragmented conservative forces together a year later under the new banner of the Liberal Party. Two elections later he led the party to a resounding victory, commencing an epic 16-year tenure as prime minister from December 1949 until his retirement in January 1966.

Menzies was succeeded in Kooyong at an April 1966 by-election by Andrew Peacock, who went on to serve as a senior minister in Malcolm Fraser’s government from 1975 until April 1981, when he unsuccessfully challenged Fraser for the leadership. He briefly returned to the ministry from November 1982 until the election defeat the following March, after which he defeated John Howard in the ballot for the party leadership. Despite leading the party to an honourable defeat at the December 1984 election, he was obliged to surrender the leadership the following September after a bungled attempt to force Howard out as deputy. A party room coup returned him to the leadership in May 1989, but he failed to win the March 1990 election despite securing for the Coalition a narrow majority of the two-party preferred vote. He then relinquished the leadership to John Hewson, and served in the shadow ministry until his retirement from politics in November 1994.

The seat’s next member for Petro Georgiou, who as member for so prestigious a seat was generally assumed to have a career as a heavy-hitter ahead of him. However, he instead emerged as a permanent back-bencher and a thorn in the side of the Howard government, particularly in relation to his liberal views on asylum seekers. Georgiou retired at the 2010 election and was succeeded by Josh Frydenberg, a banker and former adviser to Alexander Downer and John Howard who had earlier challenged Georgiou for preselection in 2007. Frydenberg won the 2010 preselection with the backing of the Michael Kroger faction, while rivals associated with the then state Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu initially backed John Roskam, the director of the Institute of Public Affairs. However, Roskam declined to run and instead threw his weight behind industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto, whom Frydenberg defeated in the final round by 283 votes to 239. Frydenberg was promoted to parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister after the September 2013 election victory.

Higgins

Blue and red numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Liberal and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Held by the Liberals since its creation in 1949, Higgins owes its blue-ribbon status to the affluence of Toorak and suburbs further to the east, including Glen Iris and Malvern. Prahran in the electorate’s west provides a strong basis of support for Labor and the Greens, while Carnegie and Ashburton in the south-east are naturally marginal. At the time of the electorate’s creation the Toorak end was accommodated by Fawkner, which prior to 1949 had boundaries resembling those of Higgins today. Higgins assumed its present character when Fawkner was abolished at the 1969 election. The seat’s inaugural member was Harold Holt, who had previously been member for Fawkner since 1935. Holt remained in the seat until his disappearance in December 1967, at which point it was used to parachute Senator John Gorton into the the lower house to enable him to assume the prime ministership. Gorton stayed on for two elections after being deposed as Prime Minister in March 1971, before indulging in a quixotic bid to win one of the Australian Capital Territory’s newly acquired Senate seats as an independent in 1975. Roger Shipton subsequently held the seat until 1990, achieving prominence only in 1988 when he stood firm against maverick businessman John Elliott’s designs on his seat. Shipton stared down Elliott only to lose preselection to Peter Costello, who was at no stage troubled in Higgins through his 11 frustrating years as Treasurer and Liberal deputy.

On the morning after the November 2007 election defeat, Costello made the surprise announcement that he would not assume the leadership. Speculation that he might later do so lingered until October 2009, when he announced his resignation from parliament. The Liberals had at this time just completed their preselection for the following election, which was won by Kelly O’Dwyer, a National Australia Bank executive who had earlier spent four years as an adviser to Costello. O’Dwyer was chosen ahead of Toorak businessman Andrew Abercrombie by 222 votes to 112, with candidates earlier falling by the wayside including Tim Wilson, then a policy director at the Institute of Public Affairs and now a Human Rights Commissioner, and the IPA’s executive director John Roskam, whose bid reportedly suffered from an article he wrote for The Punch which had put Costello’s nose out of joint. Tony Abbott said in April 2011 that O’Dwyer was “knocking hard on the door of that Shadow Cabinet”, but she is nonetheless yet to have won promotion.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,620 comments on “Seats of the week: Kooyong and Higgins”

Comments Page 29 of 33
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  1. “@senatormilne: There is no budget emergency, .@TonyAbbottMHR “sharing burden” language is fig leaf for ideological attack on poor.#auspol”

  2. Chris Bowen ‏@Bowenchris 41s

    Tony Abbott: “Over the next three years…an incoming Coalition Government will do exactly what we’ve said we’ll do” #budgetofbrokenpromises

  3. “@senatormilne: Co payments for doctor’s visit, cuts to disability and carers support and increased pension age are wrong. #auspol”

  4. Re Zoomster @1393 – I broadly agree.

    On that basis the debt ‘levy’ and the restoration of fuel excise indexation should be allowed through, while Labor excoriates the Government for lying to the electorate.

    The changes to Medicare and the Age and Disability pensions should be rejected out of hand. There is no ’emergency’, there is no mandate and there are lots of things the Government should be looking to before even thinking about attacking the sick, the aged and the disabled.

  6. [ I wonder how the AFR is going. ]

    They make a modest profit yearly, nothing flash.

    Its required reading for many in business despite the moron who is currently the boss.

  9. psyclaw and briefly

    Isn’t it Labor party policy to always support the budget except for things that require new legislation?

  10. Retweeted by Roy Morgan
    Warren Hogan ‏@anz_warrenhogan 1h

    ANZ-Roy Morgan weekly consumer confidence falls further ahead of tonight’s budget…

  11. Hope the Royal Commissioner at both political farces are being paid a lot being King Abbotts fool in a ridiculous star chamber is what those clowns will be remembered for. Chasing 20 year old ghosts what a stupid way to start the farce.

  14. Dio – I think that policy is to support supply.

    Some measures in the package of budget bills are supply – others are not and can be opposed.

    The suggestion this year is that abbott may try to put controversial stuff in with the supply measures – so there may be some argy bargy on that.

    The clerk of the Senate has already said that would be unconstitutional.

  18. @1360

    It would indeed be hilarious from the people’s perspective that despite the scrapping of the Carbon and Mining taxes that prices actually go up (as a result of other taxes and cuts)

    “You said you were bringing down the prices!”

  20. Raaraa@1418

    @1360

    It would indeed be hilarious from the people’s perspective that despite the scrapping of the Carbon and Mining taxes that prices actually go up (as a result of other taxes and cuts)

    “You said you were bringing down the prices!”

    Big increases said to be in the pipeline for gas prices in NSW anyway up to 100% has been reported to bring local gas prices into line with what applies mainly in Asia where much of that gas looks like being exported.

  21. [The Royal Commission into 20 year old rennos. Have you ever heard of such a total farce.]

    It’s a hard one to beat.

    Julia Gillard was a nobody in 1993. She didn’t become a somebody until several years later.

    For a while she was Prime Minister, and her opponents, led by the greatest wrecker we have ever seen in national politics, tried to tear her to shreds with innuendo, insinuation and heavily weighted news reports.

    They spean an entire week of Question Time, hours and hours of it, questioning her, trying to get a “misled Parliament” rap out of it.

    Two press conferences, each of an hour’s length were conducted voluntarily by Gillard, and all questions from journalists were exhuasted.

    But still they pressed on.

    At core, all she did was to help out a friend to set up a corporate entity, something solicitors and accountants do every single day of the week, everywhere. When there’s a problem with registration, they amend the application and resubmit it to comply.

    Is every accountant or solicitor who does this responsible for the later actions of the proprietors?

    No… but you’d think they were from the way this story has been presented.

    I just can’t see the point in all this attention to a relatively minor set of incidents from twenty years ago before Gillard was in politics, gone over now in lascivious detail, well after she has left politics.

    It can only be obsession, with hatred as an optional extra. Gillard lost her job nearly a year ago, over the smear campaign related to this, and other matters. She is out of politics. And yet still they want to go after her.

    I can only assume it is like the way they – and by “they” I mean Abbott – went after Pauline Hanson, to get her thrown into jail for something she was later acquitted of on appeal.

    It has many of the same elements as the Hanson case: secretive finance, behind the scenes intrigue, seemingly unlimited resources, expensive QCs and… Tony Abbott driving it.

    It is Abbott’s Royal Commission, after all, set up specifically at his direction.

    But there are added tortures. This case is costing everyone involved millions of dollars, when all the money for legal representation, air fares, behind the scenes investigations, documentary discovery and the like is added up.

    Another differentiating factor is that Gillard is completely out of politics. At least they could say that Hanson was continuing to try to stay involved in politics, and that she had to be stopped (their opinion, not necessarily mine).

    But not so Gillard. She’s gone.

    The matter is minor – whether she had all or part of the renovations on her house paid for, knowingly or unknowingly (they’ll treat either in exactly the same smearing, insinuating way), and whether she physically witnessed a document that bore her signature as a witness… over 20 years ago!

    The beneficiary of the document, Blewitt, claims she never did witness it. But that didn’t stop him from benefiting from it. He took ownership of a valuable piece of real estate in inner-city Melbourne, and disposed of it, presumably keeping the cash, as well as tidy sums from the proceeds of whatever scam with Theiss he was involved in at the time.

    Now he cries – literally – that he was just a dupe, a cork on the water, pushed this way and that by the tide, the unwitting patsy for the nefarious acts of that Bonny and Clyde duo, Gillard and Wilson, forced to put his name to fraudulent acts for fear of some unstated retribution.

    According to his testimony he was in the company of not one, but TWO potential future Prime Ministers, both Gillard AND Wilson. No wonder he was scared… a noise outside, the sound of a window creaking open, and then… a bullet to the brain from some union-organized assassin? Who knew WHAT would happen to him.

    His memory is patchy too, to say the least. Some things he can remember down to the dotted i’s and the crossed t’s.

    Other things have completely disappeared from his recollection.

    At one point he even begged forgiveness because it was twenty years ago, after all!

    If this crock is an example of how Australia is to be run – as a retributive vehicle for Abbott to destroy, even completely bury his political opponents, past and present… and for what… to make himself look good by comparison? – then it is a very sorry excuse for an inquiry and Australia is a very sorry excuse for a country.

  26. Re the Jones interview with Abbott. Abbott stated that the debt levy will cost him $6,500 and the backbench $4,000 in taxes.

    I suspect this is true in the case of Abbott, who has never shown any signs of having a very complex personal financial setup. But surely a high proportion of his parliamentary team would have arranged their affairs to avoid being hit by the top marginal tax rate.

    It strikes me that, given that they legislate the tax system that applies to all of us, it might be reasonable for all serving politicians to be required to report annually on how much income tax they have actually paid?

    Perhaps someone like the Greens or the PUP might want to suggest this (I doubt that Labor would).

  28. Dave,
    Good point about the gas price going up anyway. Labor government was falsely blamed in media for egregious electricity price hikes as the companies went full blast at gold-plating their hardware and, if true to form, increasing management remuneration.

  29. guytaur@1422

    dave

    NSW not buggest rise. Estimates are of $200 additional a year in NSW

    Am taking it you mean Budget rise.

    If so thats not the point I’m making.

    I’m making the broader point that Politicians – particularly Labor ones get the blame for any increase.

  33. ASX up almost 1% – biggest rise of over 2% is in the Resources sector – so this is more on the back of the 2% increase in the Chinese market yesterday.

    But Miners, apart from the big ones have been beaten down for some time.

  35. Does Sharman Stone ever shut up?

    She talks over anyone and everyone she was a disgrace last night – typical Liberal stand over merchant.

  43. “@AustralianLabor: “These mean-spirited measures that they didn’t go to the election on last Sept, will have an enormous reaction” @AlboMP #Budget2014 #auspol”

  44. I just saw the front page of the hard copy of the Australian.

    Dreadful.

    Obviously a cynical ploy by the Tories (and I would hate to think Heydon J was in on this) to distract from the budget while these pricks take money out of our pockets.

  47. @1446

    Indeed, and this is the situation that the LNP want to create here, with their shock jocks, jamming down the hatred that Disabled rip off tax payers.

  48. [I am with you Jimmyhaz. I think it’s a crock of shit also.]

    Labor only have themselves to blame for it. Swan and Gillard promised on more than 100 occasions to bring the budget into surplus. Gillard even said “failure is not an option”.

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