The seat of Cook is considered a safe Liberal seat. Photo: Liberal Party.
The NSW Liberal Party has preselected Simon Kennedy to be the party’s candidate for the federal seat of Cook which was vacated by the retirement of Scott Morrison.
Mr Kennedy won preselection against Sutherland Mayor and one-time front-runner for preselection Carmelo Pesce, winning 158 of the 296 votes. Two other candidates – Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner Gwen Cherne, and Ben Britton – also stood.
Located in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, Cook covers an area of 94 sqkm and is considered a safe Liberal seat. The seat was named after Captain James Cook who led an expedition that first landed on Australia’s east coast in 1770.
Mr Morrison was first elected as member for Cook in 2007 and held it until his retirement last month. He held the seat in the 2022 federal election with a primary vote of 56.07 per cent – an eight per cent drop over the 2019 election – and a two-party preferred majority of 62.28 per cent.
He announced his resignation in January to take on “new challenges in the global corporate sector” and is reported to have accepted a role with a US-based consultancy working on AUKUS.
Despite previously endorsing Mr Pesce for preselection, Mr Morrison put his support behind Mr Kennedy during a media photo op at Cronulla Beach on Tuesday morning. “Simon is a person who comes to this job with a lot of talent and a lot of ability,” he said.
Simon Kennedy formerly worked as a consultant for McKinsey and is currently a partner of consulting firm Banksia. In 2022 he unsuccessfully ran as the Liberal candidate for the previously blue-ribbon seat of Bennelong in Sydney’s northwest following the retirement of John Alexander, but was beaten by Labor’s Jermone Laxale.
Mr Kennedy does not reside in Cook and had actually moved from Maroubra to Bennelong prior to the 2022 election. He told media on Tuesday morning that he would be moving to Cook “soon”.
Fresh from celebrating a by-election win with a reduced margin in the Victorian seat of Dunkley on Saturday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Labor might not run a candidate in Cook.
“We haven’t made a final decision on that,” he told ABC Radio on Monday morning prior to the Liberal preselection. “Cook is not a seat that it would be expected that we would win, but we’ll wait and see.
“I noticed that the Liberal Party have the opportunity to finally select a woman candidate today for Cook,” he added. “But we’ll wait and see whether they actually do or whether it’s yet another bloke sitting behind Peter Dutton just saying no to everything.”
Founder of the Climate 200 fundraising body for independent candidates such as the ‘Teals’ who won seven seats in 2022, Simon Holmes a Court indicated on Twitter/X that he may be willing to back an independent candidate. But he said the candidate had to come from the community, and that no one had approached him for support.
No date has been set for the by-election.
