Division of Higgins
Template:Short descriptionTemplate:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Template:Infobox Australian electorate The Division of Higgins was an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria for the Australian House of Representatives from 1949 until 2025. At the time of its abolition in 2025, the division covered Template:Convert in Melbourne's inner south-eastern suburbs. The main suburbs included Template:VICcity, Template:VICcity, Template:VICcity, Template:VICcity, Template:VICcity, Template:VICcity, Malvern East, Murrumbeena, Prahran and Template:VICcity; along with parts of Template:VICcity, Template:VICcity and South Yarra. Though historically a safe conservative seat, Higgins was won by the Liberal Party by a margin of just 3.9 percent over the Labor Party at the 2019 election, the closest result in the seat’s history.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It then flipped to Labor in the 2022 election.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Higgins was a largely white-collar electorate. According to the Template:CensusAU, 52.4% of electors held a Bachelor's Degree, slightly more than twice the national average.<ref>Template:Census 2021 AUS</ref>
The last member for Higgins, elected at the 2022 federal election, was Michelle Ananda-Rajah, a member of the Australian Labor Party, and the first Labor member in the seat's history.
In 2024, the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the seat would be abolished in the Victorian federal electorate redistribution, effective from the 2025 Australian federal election, with its electors distributed across the divisions of Melbourne, Kooyong, Hotham, Macnamara and Chisholm.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
GeographyEdit
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
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The division was created in 1949. Like other seats in inner-eastern Melbourne, Higgins had historically been a stronghold for the Liberal Party. It was considered a "leadership seat", in part because the seat's first two members, Harold Holt and Sir John Gorton, were Prime Ministers of Australia in the period between 1966 and 1971.
More recently, the seat was held by Peter Costello, a prominent member of the Howard government as the longest serving Treasurer of Australia and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. Costello resigned from the seat on 19 October 2009, and was succeeded in the ensuing by-election by fellow Liberal Kelly O'Dwyer, who would go on to become a minister in the Abbott and Turnbull governments.
O'Dwyer retired in 2019. At that election, Labor came reasonably close to winning this seat for the first time ever, with Labor's highest two-party preferred vote in the history of the seat (46.12%). Liberal candidate Katie Allen, however, saw off a challenge from barrister Fiona McLeod, despite suffering a swing of six percent, making Higgins marginal against Labor for the first time ever. Allen became the first Liberal candidate to come up short of an outright majority on the first count. High-profile Greens candidate and former Australian Rules footballer Jason Ball also contested the seat, receiving almost a quarter of the vote.
At the 2022 election, Labor took the seat for the first time. While Allen led Labor challenger Michelle Ananda-Rajah for most of the night, on the seventh count the Green candidate's preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Ananda-Rajah, allowing Ananda-Rajah to win on a swing of 4.7 percent.
Higgins is the only Division to have been held by two Prime Ministers. This occurred when Holt went missing while Prime Minister, and then-Senator Gorton used the ensuing by-election to transfer to the House. Prior to 2022, it had only been out of Liberal hands for eight months in its existence, when Gorton became an independent to protest against Malcolm Fraser's becoming Liberal leader.
The seat is one of the few to have produced two federal Treasurers; Holt and Costello served as Treasurers during their respective tenure in Higgins. Another member, Kelly O'Dwyer had a stint as Assistant Treasurer.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
NameEdit
The division is named after Justice H. B. Higgins (1851–1929), who was a Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly (1894) and president of the Carlton Football Club (1904). He was a founding Member of Australian House of Representatives, serving as the Protectionist member for Northern Melbourne and was the Attorney-General in the Watson government (1904). He went on to become a Justice of the High Court of Australia (1906–1929) Template:Clear left
MembersEdit
Election resultsEdit
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