, the division's namesake The division was created in 1922 and is named for
Sir Edmund Barton, the first
Prime Minister of Australia. For much of its history, Barton has been a marginal seat, held by the
Australian Labor Party for most of the time after 1940, but won by the
Liberals (or their predecessors) at "high-tide" elections. Barton's most prominent member has been
Dr H. V. Evatt, who was Leader of the Labor Party between 1951 and 1960. After seeing his majority more than halved in 1949, and nearly being defeated in 1951 and 1955, he transferred to the safe seat of
Hunter in 1958. A former minister in the
Hawke and
Keating ministries,
Gary Punch, held the seat for Labor between 1983 and 1996.
Robert McClelland,
Attorney-General in the
Rudd and
Gillard governments, held the seat for Labor between 1996 and 2013.
Nickolas Varvaris won the seat for the
Liberals at the
2013 federal election, achieving a
swing of 7.2 points to finish with a
two-party-preferred vote of just 50.3 percent, which made Barton the
Coalition government's most marginal seat, but was defeated in
2016 by Labor’s former state deputy opposition leader
Linda Burney, who held it unto her retirement at the
2025 election, when it was won by
Ash Ambihaipahar, also Labor. The Division of Barton is linked to one of the more unusual episodes in Australian politics. The first member for Barton, Labor's
Frederick McDonald, disappeared after his 1925 defeat by
Nationalist Thomas Ley, and it is now believed that Ley had him murdered. After being found guilty of an unrelated murder in England in 1947, Ley was declared insane and died in
Broadmoor Asylum four months later. ==Boundaries==