ALP 9.1%
Incumbent MP
Anthony Byrne, since 1999.
Geography
South-eastern Melbourne. Holt covers the northwestern parts of Casey council area, on the edge of Melbourne. Suburbs include Cranbourne, Lynbrook, Narre Warren South, Hampton Park, Hallam, Eumemmerring, Doveton and Endeavour Hills.
History
Holt was created at the 1969 election. It has mostly been held by the ALP, usually as a safe seat, except for a couple of elections.
Holt was first won in 1969 by former Liberal state MP Len Reid. Reid lost in 1972 to the ALP’s Max Oldmeadows.
Oldmeadows held the seat for two terms, losing in 1975 to Liberal candidate William Yates.
Yates held the seat until 1980, when he lost to the ALP’s Michael Duffy. The ALP has held Holt ever since.
Duffy served as a minister in the Labor federal government from 1983 to 1993, and retired at the 1996 election.
Holt was won in 1996 by senior Labor figure Gareth Evans. Evans had been a Senator since 1977, and had served as a cabinet minister for the entire length of the Hawke/Keating government. He moved to Holt in 1996, and was elected Deputy Leader of the Labor Party after the defeat of the Keating government.
Evans retired in 1999, and the ensuing by-election was easily won by the ALP’s Anthony Byrne, with no Liberal opposition. Byrne has been re-elected five times.
Candidates
- Colin Robertson (Rise Up Australia)
- Anthony Byrne (Labor)
- Neil Bull (Family First)
- Jake Tilton (Greens)
- James Mathias (Liberal)
Assessment
Holt is a safe Labor seat.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Anthony Byrne | Labor | 43,096 | 48.2 | -6.9 |
| Ricardo Balancy | Liberal | 29,181 | 32.6 | +2.7 |
| Jatinder Singh | Palmer United Party | 4,931 | 5.5 | +5.5 |
| Jackie Mccullough | Greens | 3,469 | 3.9 | -5.3 |
| Lachlan John Smith | Sex Party | 2,514 | 2.8 | +2.8 |
| Pam Keenan | Family First | 2,232 | 2.5 | -2.5 |
| Michael Joseph Palma | Democratic Labour Party | 1,835 | 2.1 | +2.1 |
| Vivian Hill | Australian Christians | 1,232 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Jonathan Eli | Rise Up Australia | 933 | 1.0 | +1.0 |
| Informal | 5,789 | 6.5 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Anthony Byrne | Labor | 52,836 | 59.1 | -4.9 |
| Ricardo Balancy | Liberal | 36,587 | 40.9 | +4.9 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.
Labor’s vote was strongest in the centre of the seat, with 65% of the two-party-preferred vote. This dropped to 59.5% in the north and south.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 59.5 | 24,199 | 27.1 |
| South | 59.5 | 17,646 | 19.7 |
| Central | 65.1 | 17,294 | 19.3 |
| Other votes | 55.1 | 30,284 | 33.9 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Holt at the 2013 federal election
This seat has always fascinated me – solid ALP for the last 3 decades or so yet Howard almost managed to win it in 2004 off the back of the Scoresby Tollway. Just goes to show the effects that a thoroughly local and targeted campaign can have IMO.
Yeah Holt swung big towards the Liberals in 2004. At that point you could lump it in with Bruce and Isaacs as a trio of dicey Labor marginals in Melbourne’s south-east.
And then at the next election it swung back even harder to Labor. A safe seat once again.
DW
What do reckon makes Narre Warren north a blue 68 ?? Or is this a mistake ??
I’m probably wrong but the booth looks more rural than the others? Could be a mistake admittedly but who knows.
A weird district, cos under the current boundaries it feels a bit more like a mortgage belt seat rather than a grim banlieue safe Labor one. Yet it’s safer than seats like Werriwa and Watson. Perhaps the difference between NSW and Victoria in recent years.
@Morgieb I profoundly agree with you. The seat also used to cover a much larger area when it was represented by the Libs at a time when they were preeminent in Victoria.
WD, there’s a sort of green wedge through that area, so that 68 Lib booth is semi-rural with big houses on very large blocks, hobby farms, etc. Completely out of character with the remainder of the seat.
It’s not an error. The Libs Senate vote in that booth was 57% too.
WD, MM, NC
That booth in Narre Warren North is actually a shared booth with La Trobe, and most of the voters are in La Trobe. That being said, at the next redistribution more of the area could be put into La Trobe where it’s a far more natural fit, the problem being that the current boundary is quite clear and there isn’t actually many clear boundaries to use in the future.
Yes it’s a shared booth but those figures are only counting the votes from those enrolled in Holt. Same with the Senate vote I mentioned, only from the Holt component of the booth.
William Yates was a former Conservative MP in Britain who completed PhD aged 82 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Yates_%28politician%29 from the old pro-Arab right. Agree with morgieb this sort of seat shows the Sydney/Melbourne difference.