Do we like Monique Ryan?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Her votes back trans and LGBTI protections and climate action, but a disputed workplace claim and a contested Gaza position keep her out of the top bracket.
Ryan is the independent MP for Kooyong, the posh Melbourne seat she took off Josh Frydenberg in 2022, making him the first sitting treasurer to lose his seat since 1931. She held on in 2025 after a tough run against Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer. Her election-night speech took a swipe at the Plymouth Brethren church members who had campaigned for Hamer.
Her messiest chapter is the 2023 stoush with her former chief of staff, Sally Rugg. Rugg alleged she was pushed into resigning after being asked to work more than 70 hours a week, and said Ryan told her she wanted to be prime minister one day. Ryan disputed all of it. Justice Debra Mortimer refused Rugg's bid to keep her job, saying a working relationship couldn't be restored, but noted the allegations were serious. I couldn't open a report of how the case ended, so treat it as unproven.
Then came the 2025 campaign flap. Her husband was filmed removing a Liberal candidate's poster, and he apologised within hours. Ryan apologised too, saying “It should not have happened.” It's a small embarrassment, not a pattern, but it landed in a campaign that was already ugly.
Her record on honesty is mixed rather than damning. AAP FactCheck rated her 2022 debate claim that the budget allotted zero dollars to a federal integrity commission as “Misleading”, meaning accurate in parts but missing context. On votes, she consistently backed transparency, whistleblower protection and tougher scrutiny of police and spy agencies. She also voted against restricting donations to political parties, which sits oddly with the integrity pitch.
On the good side, her HECS petition gathered more than 285,000 signatures, and the government overhauled student-debt indexation in the May 2024 budget. In February 2026 she called for Epworth Hospital and the regulator AHPRA to be held to account after a Four Corners report aired allegations about a surgeon, and expressed sympathy for the patients. That's a politician using her platform for other people.
There's nothing big or new on her lately: a July 2026 radio chat covering gambling reform, lobbying and the timing of HECS indexation. So it comes down to the record. She is on the right side for LGBTQ+ people and the planet, with a contested Gaza position and a staff dispute that was never aired to a final judgment in anything I read.