Seat of the week: Holt

A once marginal seat now safe for Labor, Holt in Melbourne’s south-east has provided a home for Gareth Evans, and more recently Anthony Byrne.

Red and blue numbers respectively indicate size of two-party Labor and Liberal polling booth majorities. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Holt covers a Labor-voting area of Melbourne’s outer south-east, extending from Endeavour Hills and Narre Warren south through Hampton Park to Cranbourne. This area was accommodated by Flinders before urban expansion caught up with it after the war, then by Bruce from 1955 until the creation of Holt in 1969. The electorate was considerably larger at that time owing to the area’s lighter development, extending westwards through Dandenong to Springvale and eastwards to Emerald. Progressive redistributions reduced its area thereafter, but it continued to encompass Dandenong up to the redistribution that took effect at the 2004 election. It then assumed roughly its current dimensions, with Dandenong divided between Bruce and Isaacs, and Holt gaining Cranbourne from Isaacs.

As the balance of semi-rural areas and low-income outer suburbs tilted increasingly towards the latter, Holt transformed from highly marginal to safe for Labor. It was won for the Liberals on its creation in 1969 by Leonard Reid, then held for Labor during the Whitlam years by Max Oldmeadow, with William Yates winning it back for the Liberals in 1975. The watershed came when Michael Duffy won the seat for Labor with an 8.7% swing in 1980, and the margin was in double figures by the time Gareth Evans transferred to the seat from the Senate in 1996. Evans announced his intention to resign on the night of the 1998 election defeat, and while this ruffled feathers at the time, it did not cause trouble at the ensuing by-election for new candidate Anthony Byrne, who won easily in the absence of a Liberal candidate.

The loss of Dandenong in the 2004 redistribution cut Labor’s margin from 13.3% to 7.9%, which was followed by a further swing to the Liberals of 6.4% at the ensuing election, typifying Labor’s poor performance across Victoria. Reflecting the sensitivity of interest rates in a heavily mortgaged electorate, it then recorded a particularly forceful swing to Labor of 10.1% in 2007, joining Calwell in Melbourne’s outer north as one of two Victorian seats to record double-digit swings to Labor. The Labor margin was further boosted by 1.6% amid a generally strong result in Victoria in 2010, before a 4.9% swing in 2013 pared it back to 9.1%. A redistribution in the interim increased the margin by 0.8% through a transfer of over 14,000 voters in Narre Warren, Narre Warren South and Berwick to La Trobe in the east, a result of rapid growth in the outer suburbs generally, and around Cranbourne in particular.

The member throughout this period has been Anthony Byrne, a member of the Right faction who was widely noted as a supporter of Kevin Rudd throughout the previous government’s long-running leadership saga. Byrne won promotion to shadow parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs when Kevin Rudd became leader in December 2006, then became parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister after the 2007 election, with the trade portfolio further added in February 2009. He reportedly switched support from Rudd to Julia Gillard for the June 2010 coup only when it became apparent that Rudd was headed for a heavy defeat, and was demoted to the back bench after the 2010 election, where he has since remained. In April 2014 he made headlines after accusing Bob Carr of “narcissism, self indulgence and immaturity” on the occasion of the latter’s book being published.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

607 comments on “Seat of the week: Holt”

Comments Page 3 of 13
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  5. lizzie

    His inner Mad Monk may be leaking out. This morning he also reckons that ISIS revel in savagery more than anyone since the Middle Ages. An interesting time to pick. Lots of Abbott types heading off on The Crusades to save “civilisation” from the Saracens.

  9. BK@102

    Fighting with ISIL is ‘against God’ says PM Abbott.


    What is the idiot on about?

    The idiot is using ‘with’ in the sense ‘on the side of’. I think.

  10. You can always work out where a Gerard Henderson article will end

    [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/not-much-rotten-in-the-state-of-nsw-that-pr-wont-exaggerate/story-fnkqo7i5-1227057090658]

    I like the bit how it is not corrupt to act illegally (use developers’ money in NSW) because it is legal outside NSW.

  12. Well it is good to know Dog still takes time out from their busy schedule to have a word with the PM about international conflicts 🙂

  13. poroti

    [His inner Mad Monk may be leaking out. This morning he also reckons that ISIS revel in savagery more than anyone since the Middle Ages.]

    Ooooh no. Middle Ages!!?? FFS. Don’t go there, Abbott.

  16. poroti

    [Well it is good to know Dog still takes time out from their busy schedule to have a word with the PM about international conflicts :)]

    Love it!

  24. Tricot and the Libs and War
    ________
    Conservatives in the main seem to love wars and patriotism and all the like crap
    I suspect they think they own “the state” and must defend it
    It lies at the root of one of the long strands of our history

    Reading the contempory accounts,Australians were dazzled in 1914 by all the imperialist crap from their leaders and from the UK,and went off to die in a war that had no relevance for them …few could have found Serbia on a map or Sarajevo for that matter_

    It was then…as over Vietnam…that the Left in Australia fought the policies of the warmongers and won remarkable victories,while the right of the Labor Party deserted tha cause like Hughes did .. just as today .poor timid Shorten thinks he can avoid the Govt strategy by lying low but that wont do

    GG last night spoke of the “screaming harpies of the left”in one of his silly statements ..but the Left has always stuggled aginst the militarism that is buried somewhere in the Australian conservative psyche
    Curious too…a Fairfax points out today… that Arab states like Egypt/Kuwait/Saudi at al /are reluctant to engage in the war though being under threat ..leaving the fighting to Australia and others

  26. During the Middle Ages to which Abbott refers his Catholic Church and sundry Popes were much addicted to beheadings and burnings at the state for heretics

    Abbott seems to lack any knowledge of history

  27. 120

    Undoing the Reformation would require the end of the printing press and other communication technology. Thus the press barons would be out of a job and they are some of his biggest supporters.

  29. deblonay@124

    Tricot and the Libs and War
    ________

    GG last night spoke of the “screaming harpies of the left”in one of his silly statements ..

    Had rather a ring of ESJ about it don’t you think? 😀

  30. “@ABCNews24: Christine Milne: This war has no time frame attached to it except getting involved in another quagmire in the Middle East #auspol #Iraq”

  31. “@ABCNews24: Christine Milne: The PM hasn’t said why it is in Australia’s best interest that we deploy Australian troops to a new war in #Iraq #auspol”

  34. chttp://www.moonofalabama.org/

    _________
    A US site looks at the role that Saudi Wahhabism,an extremist cult of Islam ,has in the rise of such movements in the M East today

    He speculates that the desire of IS is to bring down the Saudi regime and establish itself as a new caliphate in the Arabian peninsula,also running the Holy cities there,and bringing a fundamentalist regime to many M East states
    There is a lot of history still to come in the Middle East

    see above article

  36. deblonay@134

    chttp://www.moonofalabama.org/

    _________
    A US site looks at the role that Saudi Wahhabism,an extremist cult of Islam ,has in the rise of such movements in the M East today

    He speculates that the desire of IS is to bring down the Saudi regime and establish itself as a new caliphate in the Arabian peninsula,also running the Holy cities there,and bringing a fundamentalist regime to many M East states
    There is a lot of history still to come in the Middle East

    see above article

    As if the Saudi regime is not fundamentalist enough already!

    Most of the 911 hijackers were Saudis, an inconvenient fact rarely mentioned by the US Govt and its supporters.

  38. Zoomster 133…re Abbott and one True Church

    I think that if Abbott wants to burn Shorten at the stake,Shorten might be willing to stike the match for the fire

  40. [ Fighting with ISIL is ‘against God’ says PM Abbott. ]

    FFS, the man AND his minders are all idiots.

    Still , from the front pages linked by William near the start of this thread, so are any number of senior editors. Those were really disgusting examples of idiot depths to which the media has sunk in this country.

    On our involvement in Iraq this time i am actually not totally agin things like deploying a few FA-18F’s and the odd transport asset. Ground troops?? Only insofar as they are used to protect other Australian deployed assets, not for actively seeking out combat in this situation. That should be up to the locals and the nearby Arab nations.

    And its all happening way too fast with no clarity or consensus on what parameters will be used to assess when we get out. Very fwarking silly and basically rushed to distract from their complete lack of competence in domestic governance issues.

    LoL! Interesting to speculate if we would be going to war so fast if some kind of juicy scandal had come out of Julia Gillard’s appearance to the RC last week??

  41. About that Abbott presser in the bush, can someone here give me an informed opinion, please?

    Why does the image of Abbott in front of the trees have a black line around its edges? Just look at the ears, it looks like it was drawn around with black texta. Other live-feed images don’t look like that.

  42. Bemused Post 129

    re GG/ESJ being the same person

    You make a great case for your thesis…as I said, a trick worthy of Agatha Christie herself !

  44. [ imacca
    Will tomorrow’s Daily Telgraph banner headline be “Abbott: Doing God’s work”? ]

    BK, you may think that’s a joke.

    Sadly I suspect its precognition. 🙁

  45. [imacca
    Will tomorrow’s Daily Telgraph banner headline be “Abbott: Doing God’s work”?]

    Or its”

    God v God
    Abbott v Evil
    Reality v Fantasy

  46. [79
    victoria

    86
    CTar1]

    I’ve also had the better fortune of knowing Johnston’s predecessor, Stephen Smith, for almost as long. Stephen is unlike the current Minister in almost every respect. He has the qualities we would all like to see in a politician – formidable resolution, energy, capacity for work, vision and intellect, and an egalitarian purpose. He’s vigilant and clear.

    There is more to be said about him but it seems improper to expand on this without his knowledge. Suffice to say I admire him for his character and am fortunate to number him among my old and proven friends.

  48. Hillary looks more like running.

    [Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has admitted she was considering running for the presidency in 2016.

    With tongue-in-cheek references to a possible run, Mrs Clinton’s appearance at an annual steak fry in Iowa had the undertones of a campaign lead-up.

    “It is true. I am thinking about it,” Mrs Clinton said, in apparent reference to a White House bid.]

  49. Yes, I cant work out why Shorten would throw Abbott a lifeline over the RET. The RET works, it has massivepublic support, and it wil;l reduce prices/

    Even Abbott’s own ‘dodgy brothers’ report says so:

    [Abbott has previously blamed the RET for having a “significant impact” on power prices, although the Warburton report found this wasn’t the case. Modelling has shown that prices would actually fall in the long term because of renewable energy deployment.]

    PS classic Abbott: asserting things that simply arent the case.

  50. Rex

    the media do that sort of thing all the time — remember they were sure that Shorten was going to back the repeal of the carbon tax..

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