Georgiou Holds Kooyong

Moderate Liberal MP Petro Georgiou has romped home in the Kooyong pre-selection, defeating challenger Josh Frydenberg with 62 of a possible 85 votes to Mr Frydenberg's 22 (a third candidate, Alistair Armstrong, who yesterday morning was still stubbornly insisting the vote was a `three horse race', received one vote, presumably his own).

Peter Costello, who supported Georgiou in the pre-selection, has suggested Frydenberg instead try for the neighbouring seat of Chisholm - currently held by Labor's Anna Burke (who won it from the former Liberal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge) - but Frydenberg has ruled this out with rather indecent haste, instead pledging to challenge Georgiou again in three years' time.

I suppose if there were any justice in the world, all new candidates - be they former staffers running for the Liberals or former union officials running for Labor - would have to run either for marginals or seats held by the opposing party, rather than having a cushy safe seat hand-picked for them whenever they elect to begin their political career, in order to prove their mettle (as well as pick up seats from the other side, if they are actually so great as to justify the usurping of currently sitting members).

And yes, Georgiou described his victory as a vindication of the `broad church' of the Liberal Party. Which, I suppose, it is.