“Obviously it was a fairly safe Liberal seat but I had good vibes along the way,during the pre-polling time and on election day itself. So here we are,” he said on Wednesday,in his first press conference.
To say Mr Kennedy was considered an outside chance of winning the blue-ribbon Liberal electorate would be a huge understatement.
He defeated a highly regarded opponent respected by both sides of politics.
But Mr Kennedy’s victory has,in part,come to symbolise the stunning extent of the Labor landslide that swept Premier Daniel Andrews back into power.
Mr Kennedy,a former school principal,sensed a change in sentiment when pre-polling began just under two weeks before election day on November 24.
He contested the 2013 federal election in Kooyong and was comprehensively beaten by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. But this campaign felt different.
“During the pre-polling two weeks I felt that there was growing interest,that people didn’t look as though you were something a bit strange in these parts.”