Focus Wentworth: Liberal plan to reclaim their heartland

The Liberal Party is said to have blue in its blood. But Ro Knox says the special ingredient in her genes is public service. Her great aunt was one of the first women to be pre-selected by Menzies’ new Liberal Party in the 1940s and she grew up hearing stories about the importance of community service. Then there was her grandfather, who had a senior role in the RAAF, and would quote Roosevelt to her: ‘you need to make a difference’.”

The Liberal candidate for Wentworth has a strong background in the big end of town. Having worked as a management consultant for Deloitte in New York and later starting a venture capital fund, she dipped her toe into politics in 2022 after being persuaded to run for Liberal preselection in the state seat of Vaucluse.

These are solid credentials for a Liberal candidate but it will take more than a high-flying career in business for Knox to succeed in politics — especially when her main rival, independent Allegra Spender, toppled a high-profile Liberal member in one of Australia’s most blue ribbon Liberal seats.  

Spender’s outspoken advocacy for the Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities, her voice on climate and tax reform, and her personal warmth have generated strong support from both conservative and progressive voters. She starts this campaign as a favourite to retain the seat, her prospects boosted by an electoral redistribution that has shifted a large number of progressive voters from Tanya Plibersek’s seat of Sydney into Wentworth.

When Knox was pre-selected in May, the seat was widely thought to be unwinnable. But that perception has changed over the past few months after a spate of antisemitic attacks and the government’s sense of being wedged over the Middle East and national security have turned Jewish voters towards the Liberal party. And at 16% of the electorate, Jewish voters are a more significant demographic in Wentworth than in any other electorate in Australia.

Even so, Knox knows she faces an uphill battle to oust Spender.

If she manages to do so, she is aware that she will be a new voice, just another junior member in the party room. She will “have a seat at the table” — but how can she translate that into influence on policy? 

“I'm pretty good at negotiating with people to get a viewpoint over the line,” Knox told The Jewish Independent. "My relationship with Peter Dutton, and with the leadership team, is very strong.”  

So how would she make a difference? At the top of her agenda would be an emphasis on tackling antisemitism, with both a stick and carrot. “The first priority is ensuring that we get prosecutions for antisemitic behaviour,” Knox says, echoing the hardline stance Dutton has taken since October 7, which has garnered widespread support within the Jewish community. “Antisemitism isn't just a Jewish issue. The whole community is feeling a significant lack of safety and security, which is very unexpected for Wentworth.”

As to prosecutions, Knox makes clear that her criticism is directed at the federal government, not the police. “We’ve had such a weak response. We’ve sent such mixed messages about Australia’s support for Israel. People put Israel and the Jewish community together, and that has been fuelled by this government.” 

Knox says Dutton’s call for a national cabinet to address antisemitism will “make a huge difference to the policing side, because you've also got a different level of police in the room with the AFP”. The Labor government held a national cabinet in January, after initially resisting calls for the move from Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal.

The Coalition is not just concerned with punishment, she adds, pointing to an $8.5 million funding pledge (which the government has since matched) to the redevelopment of the Sydney Jewish Museum, an educational initiative in which she says she was heavily involved. 

But Knox is not as supportive of Dutton’s views about the future of Gaza. The Opposition Leader described US President Donald Trump as a "big thinker and a deal maker" with a "genuine desire to see peace and stability" in the region, after Trump announced his plan to remove the Palestinian population and turn Gaza into a Riviera of the Middle East. 

While Knox emphasises that “Hamas is no friend of the Palestinian people”, she says of Trump’s plan: “I just don't think it's helpful to be talking in those sorts of terms. The most important thing at the moment is to ensure that the hostages get out. [His] inflammatory language is extremely unhelpful." But does she agree or disagree with it in principle? “I don't think it's realistic; I don't know how you'd actually even execute it,” she says when pushed. 

Lest anyone think Dutton is in lockstep with Trump on everything, however, Knox adds that her leader has been outspoken in his disavowal of the US president’s bullying behaviour over Ukraine. 

While Israel, Gaza and antisemitism have loomed large on her radar, Knox also singles out three other more traditional economic concerns in her campaigning. One is repealing the government’s industrial relations reforms, which she says will be too “burdensome, particularly for small business”. 

A second is an attack on government wastage. Trump’s approach through Elon Musk and DOGE may be extreme, she says, but it’s the right idea. Knox endorsed to Dutton’s target of axing 36,000 federal bureaucrats, a policy the Opposition leader has since abandoned.  

The third area is energy policy, where the Coalition has made a firm commitment to nuclear power. “The party is committed to net zero by 2050. The big difference between the two major parties is how to get there. Renewables will always be part of the mix.

“But if we're going to be ambitious as a country, we've got to have an ambitious energy plan. Solar is great for residential. We also need more work on batteries. But we've got to be thinking about base load. Are we really going to have aluminium smelters in this country? What about hospitals, all these things that need 24/7 power? We've got to be ambitious.”  

But Allegra Spender’s election in 2022 contained a mandate for her stance on climate action and transitioning to a reliance on renewable energy. Does Knox genuinely believe the electorate will embrace the Coalition’s nuclear stance, which has been dogged by, among other things, claims of unrealistic costing. Most notably, Dutton claimed that nuclear waste would be the size of a can of Coca-Cola, which was rejected immediately by experts.  

“I think so, because it is a zero emissions technology. Younger people understand it a lot more, and the entrepreneurial sector really understands it. 

“So, at a bare minimum, we should be exporting enriched uranium,” Knox says, adding that the debate about the safety of uranium has now been answered. “I think 19 out of 20 OECD countries use nuclear. People know that this generation of nuclear reactors are completely different to Chernobyl.” 

Knox speaks confidently and rapidly about her policy positions and issues, but she is more hesitant when asked to assess Allegra Spender’s performance over the past three years. “I think she's a very nice person, and she's very well intentioned. But my very strong view is ‘you are your actions; you're not your words’.  

“She put up one private members bill in her term, which was in February. She did move the motion against antisemitism but moving a motion is very different to passing legislation. I think the Teals have not been effective in being able to change legislation, which then changes the course of the country.”  

Labor is a negligible force in Wentworth so both the Liberals and some Jewish communal leaders have zeroed in on Spender’s voting record in Parliament, in an attempt to shift Jewish votes away from the independent. Knox claims Spender has consistently sided with the Greens and Labor: “She came in as a small 'l' liberal, and she votes over 70% of the time with the Greens and Labor on legislation.”  

Although the criticism is ostensibly about her liberal credentials, it is also a veiled reference to an apparent alignment with the two parties whose support for Israel has been at best equivocal and at worst, downright hostile.

Spender disputes Knox’s assertion about her voting record, saying on her website that: “Between May 2022 and December 2024, my record shows that when the Coalition calls a vote, I’ve supported it 60% of the time. When Labor calls a vote it’s 50%. And when the Greens do, it’s 45%.” 

Knox responds: “She's doing her numbers based on every single motion, and the vast majority of motions are procedural. I think legislation is the best decider of how you vote. On legislation, she's voted over 70% of the time with Greens and Labor.”

The depth of political division over the past 18 months has polarised communities everywhere. The Coalition believes Wentworth belongs to the Liberals. Knox is primed for the battle to reclaim it.