For two months, Amelia Hamer has been the Liberal candidate for Kooyong, campaigning in the community and establishing herself to take on the tough fight ahead at the next Federal election.
But now, even before taking on Independent Dr Moniquire Ryan who currently holds the seat, Hamer could face a new challenger from within.
Former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is reportedly interested in staging a comeback for the seat following the release of redrafted seat boundaries. These boundaries bring in a number of surrounding suburbs and would establish an easier path to victory for a Liberal candidate.
The fact the Liberal party would even consider opening up pre-selections again for the seat should say everything about its priorities for developing a “pipeline” of women.
Especially doing so just after the seat becomes a little more “winnable”.
At 31, Hamer is everything the Liberal party has said it’s been trying to promote.
She grew up in the Kooyong community, runs a small business and teaches at Swinburne University. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Philosphy, Politics and Economics, and has worked in global financial markets. She’s also a “renter” with aspirations to buy a home and a desire to “bring generational difference”, as the Australian Financial Review recently reported, noting the seat has Victoria’s highest proportion of young people. Here’s Hamer’s profile on the Liberal party page, where she is clearly listed as the “Candidate for Kooyong”.
Hamer also waited for Frydenberg to declare he would not contest the preselection before putting her hand up to run, which Frydenberg did, saying he wanted to spend time with his family.
Some in the party, including Karen Andrews on ABC Radio National this morning, believe Frydenberg would be an excellent asset and that his new pursuit of victory could be justified, given the new boundaries. Others are angry about the idea even being considered, with former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett saying Frydenberg should “put up or shut up” and publicly declare whether or not he wants to contest the seat.
Outside of the party, most women watching along will likely be gobsmacked about the idea of a man stepping into the ring and taking over the woman chosen to pursue the fight, just as the battle got a little easier to win.
The Liberal party has said repeatedly that it was to preselect women into winnable seats as a means of increasing women’s representation in the party. But the Liberals have repeatedly failed to do this, choosing blokes instead.
Here we have a seat where a woman has already been preselected. But even making it that far, may now not be enough.
As Charlotte Mortlock, founder of Hilma’s Network, which supports Liberal women in getting selected, said on the news of a potential comeback by Frydenberg: “The women who have been selected and campaigning for months are not seat warmers for dudes.”
As a reminder, Independent Dr Monique Ryan delivered a stunning defeat of the former Treasurer back in 2022. She did so on a platform of integrity, climate action, and bringing in voters who were fed up with the party’s treatment of women.
Again, the Liberal party’s own post-election review of what went wrong in the Federal 2022 election found that female voters are abandoning the party. The report did not include recommendations for quotas, like what the Labor party has been doing since the 1990s. Rather, it recommended the party develop a “pipeline” of talent.
Hamer, meanwhile, seems committed to staying the cause and taking on the election regardless of what further hoops she’s requested to jump through.
She posted a photo of herself on Instagram with the caption “Women can do anything”, appearing alongside Kooyong local Eileen Cikamatana, who just won gold at the OWF International Elite Weightlifting.