Former Liberal leader Michael O’Brien to quit parliament

Former Victorian Liberal leader Michael O’Brien has announced he will leave parliament at next year’s state election after 20 years, setting up a preselection battle in the prized inner-Melbourne seat of Malvern.

Liberal Women’s Council Victoria chair Jacquie Blackwell is considering putting her hand up, while Amelia Hamer, who fell short challenging independent Monique Ryan at the federal election, is being encouraged to stand.

Shadow attorney-general O’Brien led the opposition after the 2018 loss until September 2021, when he was rolled during Victoria’s second year of pandemic restrictions, and was treasurer during the Napthine government.

He announced on Tuesday that he had decided to leave at the November 2026 election. It will make 20 years since he entered parliament in 2006.

“When I gave my maiden speech back in 2006, my daughter was a toddler and my son was a baby in his mum’s arms,” O’Brien said in a statement.

“Today, they are university students making their way in the world. It is a measure of how much time has passed and why it is now the right time for me to pass the baton.”

The Liberal Party opens preselection for all lower house seats next Monday.

The Age has spoken to 10 party sources unable to speak publicly. They named Blackwell, Hamer, Holly Byrne, Josh Fast and Marcus Pearl among those being encouraged to contest Malvern.

Blackwell is the newly elected chair of the Liberal Women’s Council Victoria and chair of the Kooyong federal electorate conference, aligned with former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

Hamer is an analyst at stockbrokers Ord Minnett after falling short in Kooyong, which overlaps with Malvern (where she lives), at the federal election. She is the Oxford-educated grand-niece of former premier Sir Rupert “Dick” Hamer.

Byrne is a Malvern business owner and vice-president of the Liberal Party, while Pearl was until recently a City of Port Phillip councillor and chief executive at financial services consulting firm QMV. Fast is a former corporate lawyer who now runs an education business.

O’Brien said he wanted to clear space for renewal but declined to say whether he believed a woman should be prioritised in the contest.

“I can tell you one thing about the Liberal Party in Malvern. They have backed me for 20 years. They have campaigned for me. They’ve preselected me. It’s now going to be up to them, and I’m not going to seek to influence them one way or another,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien is among three former party leaders to have represented the seat of Malvern. He hoped that tradition could continue.

“I hope they will have a wide variety of candidates to choose from.”

A barrister before entering parliament, O’Brien said he had not turned his mind to what he would do next after pondering his exit for a few months.

“Twenty years is a good innings in anyone’s book. I’ve given it my all. This is a pretty relentless job. I’ve loved every second. I’ve loved the opportunity to serve my community, to serve Victorians. But it’s time to move on,” O’Brien said.

“I’ve left nothing on the field.”

He wasn’t one for regrets, he said. He named treasurer as the hardest job he’d ever had, but also the most fulfilling, and conceded COVID-19 was a difficult period to lead the party.

“I think we did what we could with what we had during a very difficult time with Victorians. I’d like to think we were standing up there asking questions, not playing politics, but asking questions that Victorians wanted answered.”

The opposition’s struggle to cut through during the pandemic was among the justifications for Matthew Guy to successfully challenge O’Brien in September 2021. Guy took the party to a second loss in 2022.

Opposition Leader Brad Battin thanked O’Brien for serving Victoria and the Liberal Party with passion, wisdom and dedication.

“Today, we acknowledge Michael’s record of service. He never compromised his integrity and was always a pleasure to work with,” Battin said.

Liberal member for Croydon and shadow minister David Hodgett last month announced he would not contest the 2026 election.

Battin said there would not be any imminent reshuffle as a result of the resignations.

O’Brien and Hodgett are some of the state Liberal Party’s longest-serving MPs, who have seen only one term in government.

More MPs from both sides of politics are expected to announce their exit in the coming months in the lead-up to the state election.

Asked on Tuesday whether he had any parting advice for the party room or the broader Victorian Liberal Party, O’Brien said only: “Win.”

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