Division of Higgins

Higgins Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Higgins in Victoria, as of the 2022 federal election
Created	1949
MP	Michelle Ananda-Rajah
Party	Labor
Namesake	H. B. Higgins
Electors	107,782 (2022)
Area	39 km2 (15.1 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner metropolitan

The Division of Higgins is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria for the Australian House of Representatives. The division covers 41 km² (16 sq mi) in Melbourne's inner south-eastern suburbs. The main suburbs include Armadale, Ashburton, Carnegie, Glen Iris, Kooyong, Malvern, Malvern East, Murrumbeena, Prahran and Toorak; along with parts of Camberwell, Ormond 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. It then flipped to Labor in the 2022 election.

Higgins is a largely white-collar electorate. According to the 2021 census, 52.4% of electors hold a Bachelor's Degree, slightly more than twice the national average.

The current member for Higgins, since the 2022 federal election, is 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 next Australian federal election, with its electors distributed across the divisions of Melbourne, Kooyong, Hotham, Macnamara and Chisholm.

Geography

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.

History

H. B. Higgins, the division's namesake

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 the longest serving Treasurer of Australia and former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Peter Costello, who was a prominent member of the Howard government. Costello resigned from the seat on 19 October 2009, and was succeeded in the ensuing by-election by 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.

Name

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)

Members

	Image	Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Harold Holt (1908–1967)	Liberal	10 December 1949 – 17 December 1967	Previously held the Division of Fawkner. Served as minister under Menzies. Served as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1967. Died in office
		John Gorton (1911–2002)		24 February 1968 – 23 May 1975	Previously a member of the Senate. Served as Prime Minister from 1968 to 1971. Served as minister under McMahon. Did not contest in 1975. Failed to win a Senate seat
			Independent	23 May 1975 – 11 November 1975
		Roger Shipton (1936–1998)	Liberal	13 December 1975 – 19 February 1990	Lost preselection and retired
		Peter Costello (1957–)		24 March 1990 – 19 October 2009	Served as Treasurer under Howard. Resigned to retire from politics
		Kelly O'Dwyer (1977–)		5 December 2009 – 11 April 2019	Served as minister under Turnbull and Morrison. Retired
		Katie Allen (1966–)		18 May 2019 – 21 May 2022	Lost seat
		Michelle Ananda-Rajah (1972–)	Labor	21 May 2022 – present	Incumbent

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Higgins

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 Australian federal election in Victoria § Higgins.[edit]

2022 Australian federal election: Higgins

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Katie Allen	38,859	40.69	−5.84
	Labor	Michelle Ananda-Rajah	27,187	28.46	+2.39
	Greens	Sonya Semmens	21,632	22.65	−0.06
	Liberal Democrats	Matthew Ford	2,648	2.77	+2.77
	United Australia	Ingram Spencer	1,917	2.01	+0.84
	Reason	Andrew Johnson	1,458	1.53	+1.53
	Animal Justice	Alicia Walker	1,295	1.36	−0.40
	Federation	Suzie Menoudakis	515	0.54	+0.54
Total formal votes			95,511	97.18	−0.31
Informal votes			2,774	2.82	+0.31
Turnout			98,285	91.23	−2.45
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Michelle Ananda-Rajah	49,726	52.06	+4.67
	Liberal	Katie Allen	45,785	47.94	−4.67
	Labor gain from Liberal		Swing	+4.67

Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Higgins in the 2022 federal election. Y indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.

Primary vote results in Higgins (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)

  Liberal

  Labor

  Australian Democrats

  Greens

Two-party-preferred vote results in Higgins

External links

• Division of Higgins – Australian Electoral Commission