Division of Higgins
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 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 |
In June 2021, the AEC announced that the electoral division would include the locality of Windsor at the following federal election, but that part of the suburb of Glen Iris and the suburb of Hughesdale would be transferred to the Division of Kooyong and Division of Hotham respectively.
Higgins is a largely white-collar electorate. According to the 2016 census, 46.5% of electors hold a Bachelor's Degree, 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.