Where are they now? Catching up with the MPs who lost their seats in 2022

The two-party system collapsing in May like a bridge made of sodden Weet-Bix meant a remarkable number of high-profile MPs on both sides of the aisle lost their jobs. Today Crikey checks in on the election’s casualties.

Josh Frydenberg

The former treasurer, unsurprisingly, didn’t have to wait long — it feels like we waited longer for his deeply reluctant concession call to Monique Ryan in Kooyong than to see him find his next job. He joined investment bank Goldman Sachs in July as a senior regional adviser for the Asia Pacific.

Terri Butler

Butler held Kevin Rudd’s old seat of Griffith before she was ousted by Green Max Chandler-Mather. After her concession — followed by a letter so salty and sour you could coat the rim of a margarita glass with it — the former Labor opposition spokeswoman on environment and water has had a flurry of appointments.

She joined the board of the Smart Energy Council, the board of Griffith University’s Climate Ready Initiative and was appointed chair of circular economy advocacy group Circular Australia.

Tim Wilson

Following his loss in Goldstein to Zoe Daniel, Wilson did the only appropriate thing for someone who occupies his place in public life combining trendy finance and debatable climate change action. He’s doing a PhD at RMIT University’s Blockchain Innovation Hub, studying “alternative models for carbon markets through tokenisation and the development of derivatives markets”. Well, indeed.

Kristina Keneally

Probably the major blight on Labor’s return to government this year was the parachuting of Kristina Keneally into Fowler, a multicultural seat where she didn’t live, which allowed independent Dai Le to snatch the formerly safe seat.

The former federal senator and NSW premier was announced in November as the new chief executive officer of the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Ken Wyatt

Since he was turfed out by voters in Hasluck (which turned out to not even be the most shocking result the Liberals suffered in the west) Wyatt was invited by the Albanese government to be part of a referendum working group on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Just this week, he added to that resumé by being appointed chair of the international advisory board of the University of Western Australia’s public policy institute, replacing another political figure, former Labor minister Stephen Smith.

Ben Morton

The biggest shock the WA Liberals suffered on their catastrophic election night was the loss of Tagney, a seat so apparently safe that not even the most optimistic Labor figures Crikey spoke to thought it was in play. The departing MP, close Scott Morrison ally Ben Morton, was announced as a commissioner of the Insurance Commission of WA board by WA Premier Mark McGowan in October, just to show there were no hard feelings.

Jason Falinski

Falinski has been doing a bit of writing in collaboration with Wilson in The Australian Financial Review. His AFR bio also tells us he’s a “lecturer in behavioural economics”, though not where he does it, and his LinkedIn tells us he’s the chair of property managers Airtrip, which, as The Australian noted at the time, is the kind of company that could exacerbate the housing affordability issues Falinski was tasked with looking into while in government.

Meanwhile, Dave Sharma, Julian Simmonds and Trent Zimmerman have been less public on their new gigs. Sharma has listed himself as a “stay-at-home dad” since May on his LinkedIn and has had several articles published in conservative publications (as well as on his substack). Simmonds is general manager for beef and cattle company (and LNP donor) Stanbroke, and Zimmerman hasn’t updated his LinkedIn since leaving Parliament, but has been doing a spot of writing for Guardian Australia.

Celia Hammond must have thought she was in for a longer parliamentary career when she took over Curtin, Western Australia’s safest liberal seat, from Julie Bishop. As it turns out she got a single term before independent Kate Chaney snatched it away. Hammond, who was vice chancellor of Fremantle’s Catholic University of Notre Dame for more than a decade before entering politics, is the only MP expelled from the house in May whose post-politics activities are a total mystery to us.

Do you know what she’s up to these days? Let us know.