The Division of Kooyong () is an
Australian Electoral Division for the
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Australian Senate, Senate. Its composition and powers are set out in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
...
in the
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of
Victoria, which covers an area of approximately in the inner-east of
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
. It contains the suburbs of
Armadale,
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...
,
Deepdene,
Hawthorn,
Hawthorn East,
Kew
Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is ...
,
Kew East,
Kooyong,
Malvern and
Toorak
Toorak () is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Stonnington local government area. Toorak recorded a population of 12,817 at the 2021 census.
The name ...
, as well as parts of
Balwyn,
Balwyn North,
Camberwell
Camberwell ( ) is an List of areas of London, area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross.
Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles' Church, Camberwell, St Giles ...
,
Glen Iris,
Malvern East,
Prahran
Prahran ( , also colloquially or ), is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Stonnington local government area. Prahran recorded a population ...
and
Surrey Hills.
After the
2022 election,
teal independent Monique Ryan became the member for the electorate, unseating former
Liberal deputy leader and
Treasurer
A treasurer is a person responsible for the financial operations of a government, business, or other organization.
Government
The treasury of a country is the department responsible for the country's economy, finance and revenue. The treasure ...
Josh Frydenberg
Joshua Anthony Frydenberg (; born 17 July 1971) is an Australian former politician who served as the treasurer of Australia and deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 2018 to 2022. He also served as a member of parliament (MP) for the divisi ...
. 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.
Geography
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the
Australian Electoral Commission
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for the management and oversight of Australian federal elections, plebiscites, referendums and some trade union
A ...
. 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.
Demography
The 2021 Census found that 64.0% of Kooyong constituents were born in Australia with an additional 8.4% being born in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. 44.8% of people stated they were not religious with the next most common responses being Catholic 19.6%, and then Anglican 7.9%. At the time of the
2022 Australian federal election
The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 21 May 2022, to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Morrison government, Liberal–National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, soug ...
, over 11% of Kooyong's population possessed Chinese ancestry.
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
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
, which it originally included; the name is from an
Aboriginal word for camp or resting place.
Kooyong was held by the
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia (LP) is the prominent centre-right political party in Australia. It is considered one of the two major parties in Australian politics, the other being the Australian Labor Party (ALP). The Liberal Party was fo ...
and its conservative predecessors for the first 121 years of its existence, apart from 1921 to 1925, when
John Latham successfully ran as a "
Liberal", mainly on the platform of removing
Billy Hughes
William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923. He led the nation during World War I, and his influence on national politics s ...
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 Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...
, the other being
Gippsland
Gippsland () is a rural region in the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains south of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers an elongated area of east of th ...
.
The seat's best-known member was
Sir Robert Menzies
''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part ...
, the longest-serving
Prime Minister of Australia
The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the Australian Government, federal executive government. Under the pr ...
. 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 Latham, Menzies, and former Opposition Leader
Andrew Peacock.
For decades, it was one of the safest
Liberal-National coalition seats in metropolitan Australia. Even during Labor's landslide victory in
1943
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured.
* January 4 � ...
, Menzies won comfortably with 62.5 percent of the
two-party-preferred vote.
Peacock's successor, high-profile Liberal backbencher
Petro Georgiou, saw off a challenge from
Josh Frydenberg
Joshua Anthony Frydenberg (; born 17 July 1971) is an Australian former politician who served as the treasurer of Australia and deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 2018 to 2022. He also served as a member of parliament (MP) for the divisi ...
for Liberal Party preselection in April 2006. On 22 November 2008, Georgiou announced his retirement at the next federal election. 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. 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 make the seat marginal in a "traditional" two-party contest with Labor for the first time in decades. Frydenberg's margin in a "traditional" matchup with Labor fell to 6.8 percent. 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.
At the
2022 Australian federal election
The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 21 May 2022, to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Morrison government, Liberal–National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, soug ...
, "
Teal independent" candidate
Monique Ryan defeated Frydenberg 52.9-47.1 of the 2PP after-preference vote. Both Frydenberg's and Ryan's campaigns spent over A$2 million each.
Name
The Division is named after the suburb of
Kooyong, on which it was originally based. However, the suburb of Kooyong was not in its namesake electorate from 1949 to 2025, being instead in neighbouring
Higgins. Nonetheless, the seat retained the name of Kooyong, primarily because the
Australian Electoral Commission
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for the management and oversight of Australian federal elections, plebiscites, referendums and some trade union
A ...
's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original electorates where possible.
With the abolition of Higgins in the leadup to the 2025 election, the suburb of Kooyong has returned to its namesake seat.
Members
Election results
References
External links
Division of Kooyong - Australian Electoral Commission
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kooyong, Division of
Electoral divisions of Australia
Electoral divisions of Australia in Victoria
Constituencies established in 1901
1901 establishments in Australia
City of Boroondara
City of Whitehorse
Electoral districts and divisions of Greater Melbourne