Monique Ryan says Frydenberg focused on the past, amid accusations of a ‘toxic’ campaign

Independent MP Monique Ryan has dismissed former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg as focusing on the past after his election defeat four years ago, while avoiding addressing his claim that her supporters personally abused him during the 2022 election campaign.

Liberal frontbenchers are backing Frydenberg for a potential rematch with Ryan in the affluent inner-Melbourne seat of Kooyong, with the upcoming launch of his book, A Grateful Son, feeding speculation he is paving the way for another tilt.

Frydenberg has accused Ryan’s camp of dialling the personal vitriol “up to 11” despite promising to reform standards in the 2022 contest, in which the independent seized the seat as part of a broader teal wave. The defeat scuppered Frydenberg’s political future, which his colleagues thought as treasurer could have included the Liberal leadership.

“It was the hypocrisy. Ryan’s supporters piously committed to a kinder, gentler style of politics, even as they waged a campaign thick with personal abuse,” Frydenberg said in an extract of his book provided to The Australian.

“The proposition was not merely that they were right and we were wrong; it was that they were good and we were bad. And because they were good, they were entitled to do as they pleased.”

He said hundreds of his signs were defaced, including with swastikas, his staff were bullied at polling stations, and posters were put up branding him a traitor, without suggesting who was behind the attacks.

Frydenberg was contacted for comment.

Tensions are already rising ahead of the next election, due before mid-2028, even as security agencies urge calm in an increasingly febrile political climate. Threats against MPs have only continued to soar since the 2022 campaign, with the 2025 election subject to a co-ordinated disruption operation from far-right figures.

Ryan was targeted when a white supremacist crashed a Kooyong candidate forum.

The independent was embarrassed that same year after her husband was filmed tearing down a corflute for Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer, who nearly toppled Ryan in a last-minute postal vote surge.

Ryan on Friday did not reject Frydenberg’s claims, instead saying the extract “revisits his recollections of the 2022 election campaign”.

“My focus then was the failure of the Morrison government to deliver on the issues that mattered most to the Kooyong community,” she said in a statement, adding she was grateful to the thousands of volunteers who supported her campaigns.

“Mr Frydenberg will spend the coming weeks focusing on past events. My focus will remain, as it always has, on the Kooyong community.”

Frydenberg also attacked Simon Holmes à Court, the founder of fundraising outfit Climate 200, which funds Ryan’s campaigns.

“Holmes à Court’s Twitter account was a non-stop flow of toxic sludge, including calling John Howard ‘the angel of death’, a term widely known as the epithet of Auschwitz ‘doctor’ Josef Mengele,” he said. Holmes à Court has rejected the claim he had made a Nazi reference and threatened to sue over the claim. Holmes à Court was contacted for comment.

Leading Coalition moderate Andrew Bragg said on Friday he had supported Frydenberg in his last tilt and thought the former treasurer had more to contribute.

“I think he has a lot to offer Australia,” the opposition housing spokesman said.

Bragg, who was chided for speculating on migration numbers ahead of Taylor’s policy announcement, joins fellow frontbencher Angie Bell, who told this masthead last month that Frydenberg and his high profile would be welcomed back with open arms.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson has levelled similar accusations at the Climate 200 machine after narrowly defeating independent candidate Zoe Daniel in Goldstein in 2025 – a feat that made him the only Liberal to have won a seat back from a teal.

“While they drape themselves in integrity, the evidence base clearly shows there was deeply dishonest, deceitful and at times illegal behaviour,” he said in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the election, adding an intimidation campaign prompted him to move house.

Daniel has in turn accused the Liberal Party of a shepherding a “vicious” smear campaign against her.

While MPs gear up for another fierce contest over the country’s affluent inner-city suburbs some time before May 2027, election analyst Antony Green said they were not the seats that would turn the election.

“Winning back seats like Kooyong, the Liberal Party has to do it at some stage if it ever wants to get back into government. But in the current political climate, you’d have to say that One Nation is the bigger issue,” he said.

Green said the Liberals could not rely on preferences in a seat like Kooyong, where One Nation has little presence and Greens and Labor voters tended to preference the independent. That means the party needs to increase its primaries, despite losing a third of its vote around the country since the last election.

“Last time the Liberal got 43 per cent, the independent got 34, and the independent caught up and passed on preferences,” Green said. “The Liberals have got to get closer to 50 per cent.”

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