ALP 10.0%
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.
Redistribution
Holt shifted south, losing Endeavour Hills, Doveton, Eumemmerring, Hallam and Narre Warren to Bruce. Holt gained the remainder of Narre Warren South from La Trobe, and Cranbourne South, Pearcedale, Warneet and Blind Bight from Flinders. These changes cut the Labor margin from 14.2% to 10%.
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 six times.
Candidates
- Anthony Byrne (Labor)
- Jess Wheelock (Greens)
- Jatinder Singh (United Australia)
- Jennifer Van Den Broek (Liberal)
Assessment
Holt is a safe Labor seat, even if the margin was hurt by the recent redistribution.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Anthony Byrne | Labor | 53,506 | 53.7 | +5.5 | 48.9 |
| James Mathias | Liberal | 29,777 | 29.9 | -2.7 | 33.7 |
| Jake Tilton | Greens | 6,317 | 6.3 | +2.5 | 6.5 |
| Neil Bull | Family First | 5,614 | 5.6 | +3.1 | 4.8 |
| Colin Robertson | Rise Up Australia | 4,416 | 4.4 | +3.4 | 4.2 |
| Others | 1.9 | ||||
| Informal | 5,243 | 5.0 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Anthony Byrne | Labor | 63,929 | 64.2 | +5.1 | 60.0 |
| James Mathias | Liberal | 35,701 | 35.8 | -5.1 | 40.0 |
Booth breakdown
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 56.4% in the south to 70.4% in the north.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 56.4 | 17,642 | 21.6 |
| Central | 62.5 | 15,157 | 18.6 |
| North | 70.4 | 14,697 | 18.0 |
| Other votes | 58.0 | 14,740 | 18.1 |
| Pre-poll | 54.9 | 19,350 | 23.7 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Holt at the 2016 federal election
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I’m intrigued by the new boundaries for Holt. It covers pretty competitive territory at state level: Narre Warren South, Cranbourne (both marginal Labor), and Hastings (safe-ish Liberal).
It ought to be more competitive than the 10% margin suggests.
Anthony Byrne is as close to a Liberal as a Labor MP can get – that might explain his relative safety in this seat.
John
I’M facilitated as to how you see AB. My attention is drawn to the fact that in 20 YEARS this bloke has never been promoted. This would indicate that he must be completely useless.
Having said that we want him to stay. He is up for defined benefit pension. So we would have to pay him more if he retired, along with funding his successor
It is very unimpressive what the AEC has done here. What possible connection does the south have with the north ?
He’s socially conservative, economically neoliberal, hawkish on the Intelligence committee, and was happy to make African Gangs an issue in the 2016 campaign.
It’s not a good look for Labor (as they try to present a progressive image) that a person like that is in a safe seat. As David points out though it really isn’t that safe on paper and perhaps there is still a strong “DLP” type vote for Byrne specifically in the Casey area. Casey is an Australian Christian Lobby target.
Including Hastings seems to be with a view to the plan to make it Melbourne’s primary port; the south east will be deeply tied to that.
These boundaries seem perfectly sensible to me. What do the two ends of the electorate have in common? A local govt area for one thing. Tooradin is closer to Cranbourne than any community on the Mornington peninsula.
Jennifer Van Den Broek is the Liberal candidate for Holt