So Petro
Georgiou won Kooyong. No surprise. He got his political blooding in 1975. He
can handle himself in a scrap. His
contender, Josh Frydenberg – and his backers – have plenty to handle now. It’s
less clear if they have the mettle.

The result
was emphatic – 62-22-1. The numbers were out within minutes – along with the
gag that more people were prepared to give Frydenberg testimonials than vote
for him.

These
people are senior people. Important people. People who don’t like getting egg
on their faces. Calculating people. People who – presumably – agreed to back
Frydenberg publicly because he – and his backers – assured them that he’d make
a good showing on the day.

He didn’t. He
performed poorly. Very poorly indeed. And now these senior people, these
important people, have egg on their faces. So does Frydenberg. So do his
backers (let’s just make things a little easier and refer to them as Alexander
Downer from now on). In fact, there’s egg all over the place.

Some senior
people look very foolish – but Frydenberg looks more foolish. But not as foolish
as Alexander Downer looks. You’d think a stint as leader and ten years as
Foreign Minister would please a pol but, no, there’s always some silly sausage
who thinks they can go the one step further – and ends up looking like a
complete idiot.

No doubt
there’s been a lot of explaining going on behind the closed doors of where
senior people, important people gather.