Division of Kooyong

Kooyong Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Kooyong in Victoria, as of the 2022 federal election
Created	1901
MP	Monique Ryan
Party	Independent
Namesake	Kooyong, Victoria
Electors	113,054 (2022)
Area	59 km2 (22.8 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner metropolitan

The Division of Kooyong (/kuːjɒŋ/) is an Australian Electoral Division for the Australian House of Representatives in the state of Victoria, which covers an area of approximately 59 km² (23 sq mi) in the inner-east of Melbourne. It contains the affluent suburbs of Balwyn, Balwyn North, Camberwell, Canterbury, Deepdene, Kew, Kew East, Mont Albert, Mont Albert North, Surrey Hills and parts of Glen Iris.

After the 2022 election, teal independent Monique Ryan became the member for the electorate, unseating former Liberal deputy leader and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. It is the first time since Federation that the seat has not been held by the Liberals or their predecessors. Ryan is also the first woman to hold the seat, as well as the first member to unseat an incumbent in Kooyong since 1922.^[1]

Geography

Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.^[2]

Demography

The 2021 Census found that 64.0% of Kooyong constituents were born in Australia with an additional 8.4% being born in China. 44.8% of people stated they weren't religious with the next most common responses being Catholic 19.6%, and then Anglican 7.9%.^[3]

History

The Division was proclaimed in 1900, and was one of the original 65 divisions to be contested at the first Federal election. It was named after the suburb, which it originally included; the name is from an Aboriginal word for camp or resting place.^[5]

Kooyong has been held by the Liberal Party of Australia and its conservative predecessors for its entire existence, apart from 1921 to 1925, when John Latham successfully ran as a "Liberal", mainly on the platform of removing Billy Hughes as Prime Minister. With Hughes' resignation in 1923, Latham joined the governing Nationalist Party, and remained a member till his resignation from the seat and his elevation to the High Court. It is one of two original electorates in Victoria to have never been won by the Australian Labor Party, the other being Gippsland. For decades, it has been one of the safest Liberal-National coalition seats in metropolitan Australia. Even during Labor's landslide victory in 1943, Menzies won comfortably with 62.5 percent of the two-party-preferred vote.

The seat's best-known member was Sir Robert Menzies, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia. From 1922 to 1994, it was held by only three members, all of whom went on to lead the non-Labor forces in Parliament – former Opposition Leader and future Chief Justice John Latham, Menzies, and former Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock.

Peacock's successor, high-profile Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou, saw off a challenge from Josh Frydenberg for Liberal Party preselection in April 2006. On 22 November 2008, Georgiou announced his retirement at the next federal election.^[6] Frydenberg won preselection as the Liberal Party's candidate for the seat for the 2010 election and won, despite a small swing against him.

In 2019, high-profile Greens candidate Julian Burnside received the highest two-party preferred vote against the Liberals or their predecessors in 90 years, at 44.3%. The Liberals had anticipated a strong contest and doubled their campaign funding to Kooyong earlier in the year, from $500,000 to $1 million.^[7] Frydenberg retained the seat, despite suffering a significant negative swing of 8.81% and the Liberal Party receiving its lowest first preference vote in the electorate in 76 years. It was also only the second time in 76 years that the major non-Labor party did not win the seat outright on the first count. The swing was actually large enough to drop the Liberal margin in a "traditional" two-party contest with Labor to 6.8 percent, the closest margin between the parties in decades. Although the Liberal Party won in the majority of booths, the Greens had the highest primary vote in three booths (Melbourne, Glenferrie and Glenferrie Central) and won in two-party preferred terms in 10 of the booths.

Name

The Division is named after the suburb of Kooyong, on which it was originally based. However, the suburb of Kooyong has not been in its namesake electorate for some time, being instead in neighbouring Higgins. Nonetheless, the seat has retained the name of Kooyong, primarily because the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original electorates where possible.^[8]

Members

	Image	Member	Party	Term	Notes
		William Knox (1850–1913)	Free Trade	29 March 1901 – 1906	Previously a member of the Victorian Legislative Council. Resigned due to ill health
			Anti-Socialist	1906 – 26 May 1909
			Commonwealth Liberal	26 May 1909 – 26 July 1910
		Sir Robert Best (1856–1946)	Commonwealth Liberal	24 August 1910 – 17 February 1917	Previously a member of the Senate. Lost seat
			Nationalist	17 February 1917 – 16 December 1922
		Sir John Latham (1877–1964)	Liberal Union	16 December 1922 – 1925	Served as minister under Bruce and Lyons. Served as deputy prime minister under Lyons. Served as Opposition Leader from 1929 to 1931. Retired. Later appointed Chief Justice of Australia
			Nationalist	1925 – 7 May 1931
			United Australia	7 May 1931 – 7 August 1934
		Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978)	United Australia	15 September 1934 – 21 February 1945	Previously held the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Nunawading. Served as minister under Lyons, Page and Fadden. Served as Opposition Leader from 1943 to 1949. Served as Prime Minister from 1939 to 1941, and 1949 to 1966. Resigned to retire from politics
			Liberal	21 February 1945 – 17 February 1966
		Andrew Peacock (1939–2021)	Liberal	2 April 1966 – 17 September 1994	Served as minister under Gorton, McMahon and Fraser. Served as Opposition Leader from 1983 to 1985, and from 1989 to 1990. Resigned to retire from politics
		Petro Georgiou (1947–)	Liberal	19 November 1994 – 19 July 2010	Retired
		Josh Frydenberg (1971–)	Liberal	21 August 2010 – 21 May 2022	Served as minister under Turnbull and Morrison. Lost seat
		Monique Ryan (1967–)	Independent	21 May 2022 – present	Incumbent

Election results

References

External links

• Division of Kooyong - Australian Electoral Commission

37°48′43″S 145°03′40″E / 37.812°S 145.061°E / -37.812; 145.061

This page was last edited on 8 April 2024, at 23:27