Hamer hammers her Liberal stake into Malvern’s blue-ribbon heartland
Amelia Hamer, the Liberal candidate for the blue-ribbon seat of Malvern in November’s state election, will launch her campaign on Sunday afternoon. But driving around the leafy streets of the electorate the 33-year-old Oxford graduate hopes to represent, you’d think her official campaign had been up and running for weeks.
Hamer’s corflutes are mushrooming on mansions across Toorak, Armadale and Malvern. A campaign source not authorised to speak publicly said nearly 200 had been erected so far, with Hamer’s signature royal blue Liberal for Malvern signage suggesting youthful, albeit conservative, enthusiasm.
It’s the second crack Hamer, who ditched her safety net when she finished her job as a research analyst at Ord Minnett a fortnight ago, has had at running for public office.
Last year she narrowly failed in her tilt to win back the historically blue-ribbon federal seat of Kooyong from incumbent teal Monique Ryan, who in May 2022 ousted former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
During the May 2025 federal campaign, billionaire Lindsay Fox and his wife Paula gave permission for a Hamer billboard to be attached to the high fence of their Irving Road, Toorak mansion. The rich-listers’ granddaughter went to school with Hamer at nearby exclusive girls’ school St Catherine’s.
So far this time around, there is no such electioneering affixed to the Fox compound – but many other powerful and wealthy residents of the electorate have fallen in behind Hamer.
Ten weeks out from election day, chairman of investment bank Flagstaff Partners Tony Burgess, who lives on prestigious Toorak boulevard Hopetoun Road, has a Hamer corflute on his fence, as does the Clendon Road, Toorak home owned by listed fund manager and fintech group Netwealth CEO Michael Heine, and a Heyington Place, Toorak mansion owned by millionaire neurosurgeon Richard Bittar.
Even former Victorian Liberal Party treasurer and millionaire businessman Andrew Abercrombie, who was recently seen at a fundraiser for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, is behind Hamer, sporting a corflute on his prominent St Georges Road, Toorak estate.
Thus far, however, there are some notable exceptions amid what are awkward dynamics between local party powerbrokers.
Hamer won Malvern preselection over local party identity Jacquie Blackwell, who is chair of both the Liberal Women’s Council of Victoria and of the party’s Kooyong federal electorate branch, as well as being treasurer of the party’s Malvern state electorate branch.
Blackwell was backed in the race by Frydenberg, who has history with Hamer too. After she won preselection for his old seat in March 2024, speculation built that Frydenberg might seek a political comeback in Kooyong. A backlash erupted at the prospect of him displacing a preselected female candidate, until he publicly ruled out a return and confirmed his support for Hamer.
Graciously, Frydenberg has donated a signed copy of his memoir, A Grateful Son, to be auctioned at Sunday’s event, while Blackwell has been out on the campaign trail with Hamer. On Saturday morning Blackwell (sporting a Hawks scarf and Hamer T-shirt) was streetside at a “listening post” with Hamer talking to voters and handing out materials.
“Amelia is a great candidate, and she will make a fabulous member for Malvern,” Blackwell told The Age. “I am 100 per cent behind her and am enjoying working closely with her.”
Blackwell’s husband is Richard Murray, the former executive at billionaire Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments and now chief financial officer at Sigma Healthcare. Like his wife, Murray is a Liberal powerbroker in his own right, now as a director of party fundraising vehicle the Higgins Foundation.
Returns lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission for the 2025 financial year show the vehicle brought in just under $680,000 in the year and paid out almost $410,000, for an effective surplus of more than $270,000.
A party source not authorised to speak publicly told The Age that the Higgins Foundation would not be providing any funding for Hamer’s Malvern campaign, with monies earmarked for the next federal election.
The power couple live in a historic, recently renovated mansion in Armadale. Their wrought-iron fence has been emblazoned with a billboard supporting Hawthorn’s tilt at the 2026 AFL premiership. Blackwell says when the season is over, the sign will be replaced by one promoting Hamer.
Likewise, no sign is yet to be seen at the Toorak homes of Murray’s fellow directors on the Higgins Foundation board, former Australian Bankers Association boss Alan Cullen and Alinta Energy chair Robert Nicholson.
Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, who was a key backer of Hamer’s federal preselection in November last year, will be at Toorak Park Pavilion in Malvern for Sunday’s event to speak in support of her candidacy.
Kennett told The Age that Hamer, who is a grandniece of former Victorian premier Sir Rupert “Dick” Hamer and granddaughter of former Liberal senator for Victoria David Hamer, represented a key part of what Malvern and Victoria needed.
“She’s young, she’s highly academically qualified, she’s commercially experienced for a young person and she is a good communicator,” he said.
Kennett said application of Hamer’s “good values” into the community would be an important ingredient towards making Victoria a better state.
Hamer is running a disciplined campaign. She declined to speak at length ahead of her launch, but told The Age her early footslog revealed an appetite for change.
“Malvern residents are sick and tired of a Labor government that has failed to deliver for Victorians,” she said. “The roads are full of potholes, crime is out of control and costs just keep going up.
“From all the doors I’ve knocked on across the electorate, one message is clear: the people of Malvern want a fresh start for Victoria.”
Hamer’s quest follows the retirement of one-time state treasurer and opposition leader Michael O’Brien, who has held the safe, inner-Melbourne seat for the Liberals for two decades – a seat that is now held by a margin of 6 per cent. O’Brien has been actively supporting Hamer’s candidacy, making sure she is invited to the right functions and introduced to the right people.
Hamer fundraised $1.8 million to drive her 2025 Kooyong campaign and spent it all. A Liberal source said a candidate running in a hotly contested state seat might expect to spend up to $300,000, but this time around Hamer is expected to spend much less than that to win the safe seat. Her campaign, having raised more than it needs, is expected to help fund less financially flush Liberal candidates elsewhere in Victoria towards November.
“Amelia comes as a candidate in Malvern having already campaigned in Kooyong where … she worked very hard,” Kennett said. “I think there is a lot to be said for candidates who get out there and do the work, candidates whether they’re existing members of parliament or new have to earn the right to be employed for four years, and Amelia has done that with energy and enthusiasm.”
Kennett, along with several others including Victorian senator Jane Hume, for whom Hamer worked as staffer, have emerged as key advisers.
Hume, who unsuccessfully ran for preselection in Malvern in 2006 before she became a senator, will speak at Hamer’s campaign launch, which will be hosted by Liberal deputy leader David Southwick. More than 200 supporters are expected to attend, making it one of the largest Liberal campaign launches in the unfolding Victorian campaign.
“[Hamer] has a number of people who she talks to and asks advice from, and I am one of those,” Kennett said. “She reaches out, she is a good listener, but, unlike many, she will act on that advice. A lot of people, particularly in politics, will listen and be very personable and engaging … but with very little follow-up.
“She has earned the respect of those who have gone before and those who are there because of her own effort and her personality. There is no doubt that Amelia has worked very hard.”
Kennett is “absolutely” confident Hamer will win come November 28.
“I think Amelia will win, deserves to win and will win comfortably,” he said. “That will be a reflection of what’s going to happen throughout the state.
“I think she’s going to be one of a small army of people who are new to the parliament – they will be on the conservative side, not the Labor side.”
Victorians, he predicted, would vote for change.
“I think the public’s had a gutful, they can’t afford to continue to live the way they are,” he said.
“The public are increasingly aware of the condition of the state and who they blame. The government is seen to have run out of steam and not governed well, there is the added layer of corruption and other ingredients that tell me … a whole lot of traditional Labor seats are going to lose support.”
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