ALP 7.1%
Incumbent MP
Cassandra Fernando, since 2022.
Geography
South-eastern Melbourne. Holt covers the northwestern parts of Casey council area, on the edge of Melbourne. Suburbs include Cranbourne, Lynbrook, Hampton Park, Hallam, Eumemmerring, Doveton and Endeavour Hills, and part of Narre Warren South.
Redistribution
Holt lost part of Cranbourne South to Bruce. This made no change to the margin.
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 held his seat for the next 23 years, retiring in 2022.
Labor candidate Cassandra Fernando won Holt in 2022.
Assessment
Fernando should benefit from a new personal vote. Combined with her reasonably safe margin, she has a good chance of re-election, but Labor’s difficulties in Victoria make it hard to say this seat is secure.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Cassandra Fernando | Labor | 36,326 | 40.9 | -9.7 | 40.8 |
| Ranj Perera | Liberal | 26,274 | 29.6 | -6.2 | 29.5 |
| Gerardine Hansen | United Australia | 8,592 | 9.7 | +3.5 | 9.6 |
| Sujit Mathew | Greens | 7,583 | 8.5 | +1.4 | 8.6 |
| Sandy Ambard | One Nation | 4,295 | 4.8 | +4.7 | 4.9 |
| Ravi Ragupathy | Independent | 2,673 | 3.0 | +3.0 | 3.0 |
| Matthew Nunez-Silva | Liberal Democrats | 2,423 | 2.7 | +2.7 | 2.7 |
| Gregory Saldanha | Federation Party | 730 | 0.8 | +0.8 | 0.8 |
| Informal | 6,227 | 6.5 | +2.4 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Cassandra Fernando | Labor | 50,777 | 57.1 | -1.5 | 57.1 |
| Ranj Perera | Liberal | 38,119 | 42.9 | +1.5 | 42.9 |
Polling places in Holt have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 54.5% in the south to 63.7% in the north.
| Voter group | GRN prim | UAP prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 9.7 | 10.0 | 54.5 | 18,487 | 22.1 |
| Central | 9.1 | 9.9 | 61.2 | 8,355 | 10.0 |
| North | 9.1 | 12.5 | 63.7 | 7,213 | 8.6 |
| Pre-poll | 7.1 | 9.9 | 56.6 | 33,422 | 40.0 |
| Other votes | 9.7 | 7.3 | 56.0 | 16,029 | 19.2 |
Election results in Holt at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the United Australia Party.
Labor hold, with a swing against Cassandra Fernando. While this electorate has the more of the Labor friendly parts of Casey council here, there is a large portion of the electorate that has a mortgage.
Agree SpaceFish a bigger swing here than Bruce as it is more mortgage belt than Bruce. However, the strongest Labor part of Casey council is Doveton/Eummmering followed by Hallam which are all Solid Labor suburbs. The only Solid Labor suburb here in Hampton Park.
Melbourne’s property market has been stagnant for the past couple of years, and is now expected to go backwards next year. Will this have any political consequences?
holt and bruce will be medium term coalition targets
Nimalan,
You are correct, if my memory serves me correctly it was Doveton that helped Labor narrowly hold on here in 2004.
Nicholas,
If housing prices go down steadily then I don’t think there will too much of backlash however, if there were a violent correction then the government would be in serious trouble here.
John,
I agree especially if both have margins after the next election under 4% which possible.
@ Spacefish
Agree if was not for Doveton labor would have lost Holt in 2004 even with Hallam and Hampton Park.
@spacefish the other thing that will help them specifically in Bruce is if sheds the rest or even a little bit more of Dandenong it wlll lkely flip also the excess in Bruce is likely to transfer to Holt. If holt were to take in parts of La Trobe lkely the rest of Casey lga it too would likely flip. so labor will be in trouble shortly
I have similar thoughts for this seat as I do Bruce, probably the sort of seat that decides if the LNP manage to form a majority or not. Bruce is said to be buffered by Hill’s personal vote but is held on a tighter margin, latest round of MRP from Accent/Redbridge had this seat competitive. Few different data points showing a 5%+ swing in Victoria and more granular pollstars claiming the outer suburbs and regions account for a disproportionate amount of it. I think Holt is in play, but Labor certainly have the edge with their current margin.
Liberals will not win Holt or Bruce or
Majority government in 2025
Pretty reasonable chance that ends up being correct yes
However the idea of the Liberals capturing either of Bruce/Holt and a majority honestly feels more realistic at this point than Menzies and/or Deakin flipping to Labor. I don’t think Labor have any realistic targets except for Sturt and maybe a GRN seat in QLD or something.
@mick never say never but i think your right i dont think they will get enough seats for majority given the 3 teal seats in nsw wont flip. they likely wont win majority without holt and/or bruce
Is the key here:
* Does Fernando get a sophomore surge? If so, could that be enough to hold off any overall swing against Labor?
* Is the movement away from the ALP already baked in from last time? So less movement than you may get in other seats.
Both of these give the ALP a good shot of holding on here. Which we really shouldn’t be talking about.
I would not be surprised if none of Aston Menzies or Deakin were won by Labor but one may be won by Labor. Seats other than that like Dunkley and Mcewen will not shift. I suspect the teal Seats will not be won by the liberals.
Realignments don’t just take one electoral cycle, numerous factors would have cushioned the reaction against Labor in 2022, whilst in 2025 the drivers behind such a move are more intense. Mortgage belt areas in growth corridors will be more disproportionately affected by COL and interest rates, the lack of good public transport infrastructure in places like here and Hawke don’t help people feeling penned in, miles from the city and facing steep economic challenges.
My instinct is still that Labor holds due to the size of the margin but if the swing is on come election night then Holt is absolutely in play IMO.
3-4% swing to the liberals with an outside chanc of an upset win.
@mick none will be won by Labor of those first 3. McEwen will flip to the Liberals in my opinion. Dunkley will be lineball and could either way. Belyea is sittin on about a 3% margin after the by election and redistributio. she only won the by election because peta murphys personal vote likely transferred to Belyea out of sympathy. Also those who voted labor out of sympathy for Labor and Peta Murhys passing. in a regular by elction due to retirement or other reasons the seat would have been lost. Liberals can absolutely win Dunkley.
on the liberal seats im not writing the liberals off in victoria.
I just received a flyer from Cassandra Fernando. Either they gave the printers the wrong colour palette or she is running away from the Labor brand, as the purple of the flyer has nothing to do with Labor red.
Given plibersek also did this it’s option b
They do it as a trick as to try and confuse people of lower education and minority background. Purple is the colour of the aec and they hope they might think it’s official aec information.
It’s what the Libs did at the last election. Disassociate their MPs with the party branding, in electorates where the party is vulnerable – such as the outer suburbs for Labor this time around.
Although, if the flyer is purple it may be from the Together Union. I have seen flyers promoting Corrine McMillan (QLD Labor MP) in purple branding, branded as being from the “coalition of working families”, which is just the Together Union. I don’t think Fernando is connected to that union though.
Nope this this has the labor name on it. And in pliberseks case was basically just a flyer telling people who had moved into Sydney from the redistribution they are now apart of her electorate from her office
Ohh alright, just Labor MPs trying to distance themselves from Labor then. Nothing new, MPs from all parties have been doing this for ages.
Yea when the writings on the wall they try and make it about them not the party
Tanya Plibersek has used purple for her marketing and shirts for multiple elections, including in 2019 and 2022. Nothing new.
Yea because she’s under constant threat from the greens
I don’t think purple should be used for any federal party given it’s the colour used by the AEC. Just pick a different colour.
It’s a free country.
After UAPs good result here last time around, and the scenes from the local council meeting, how big will the Trumping the Patriots vote be?
Mostly I dunno but uap could push this close to themlibs
Depends how many Palmer voters live in Cranbourne South
Not comparable to UAP, totally different electoral landscape and vibe around that party
I really wonder why this seat did not as much attention as neighbouring Bruce as i mentioned above pretty much all of the urban area is mortgage belt home owning While in Bruce Dandenong and Doveton have more renters and a less settled population. This seat is more aspirational and apart from Hampton Park none it is Rock Solid Labor territory. The Libs candidate in Bruce is a diaster so maybe they should start shifting resources here instead.
Can’t comment as to the ground games, but driving through here today, there were plenty of Liberal signs around the place.
Seems like they’re at least putting in some sort of effort, above the typical “token sign or two” that usually happens if a party feels they have no hope.
@Nimalan I’d say Cranbourne and Clyde are fairly solid Labor areas (the latter more recently), whilst Cranbourne South and beyond the Royal Botanic Gardens are swingy areas that are trending right.
As for why there hasn’t been much attention, I can only guess that it’s because its margin is bigger than Bruce and unlike Hawke/McEwen/Gorton, the southeast seems to be fairly well covered in terms of services and utilities, and of course the Cranbourne Line services this area directly versus the Melton Line which is still waiting until forever to even be electrified.
@ Tommo9
At close state elections like 2010 and 2014 Cranbourne is very marginal. This is different to Dandenong which is among the strongest urban areas for Labor in the nation. Cranbourne is mortgage belt and more aspirational, young families buying the first home. It is a bit like Gawler in SA or Penrith WA but more ethnically diverse. The suburb of Doveton in Bruce is one the poorest places in metro Australia and like Davoren Park in Adelaide so welfare class area. I agree , the Southeast is better covered in services all level crossings on Pakenham and Cranbourne line will be removed by next year and will benefit from Metro Tunnel. However, extention of the line to Clyde is still needed. I agree Hawke is more of a concern due to Melton line issues and also problems on the Western Highway which is not of urban freeway standard.
I assume for Bruce, it is that there is a quite high proportion living in the eastern part which includes Berwick which is Anglo heavy and more middle class (to even quite upper class in some parts) whereas for Holt, the Liberal voting areas are just farmland which might look big on the map but small on the population.
@Nimalan, the reason why the state seat of Cranbourne was marginal in 2010 and 2014 was because the well known Aussie Rules footballer Geoff Ablett was the Liberal candidate for Cranbourne for both elections plus he was in fact the mayor for City of Casey between 2008 to 2013. Although since 2020, his reputation was destroyed due to corruption allegations.
Fair Point, Marh i agree Berwick is quite upper class in parts and very Anglo. In that way Bruce is a polarised electorate as it includes Upper Middle Class Anglo areas like Berwick and Narre Warren North and semi-rural Harkaway contasted by Dandenong which is among the least Anglo areas in the nation and more of a fresh of the boat suburb. In Holt the strong Liberal areas are farmland and coastal hamlets like Tooradin etc which dont have much population in contrast to Berwick. I always thought Cranbourne could be volatile as it is mortgage belt and more homeowning than Dandenong/Doveton.
If the Liberals want to win government without the Teal seats they need to look at seats such as Holt as an alternative. Tim Smith once said the Liberals need to take focus of Kew and put into Cranbourne unlike in Bruce there was no controversial Liberal candidate in Holt and she previously ran at the state election and got a small swing (albeit below state average) to her. The Biggest swings against the Libs this occured not in Teal areas but along the Pakenham/Cranbourne lines which includes a mix of established working class/outer suburban areas. I would say that that Princes Highway and South Gippsland highway are the Liberals Boulevarde of Broken Dreams this election. A good result here would have given momentum for the state election.
The libs issues were stacked against them and trump did them no favours. It wasn’t just in Australia where conservatives fell from a winning position to lose the election along with the leaders seat.