, the division's namesake The division was created in 1949. Like other seats in inner-eastern Melbourne, Higgins had historically been a stronghold for the
Liberal Party. It was considered a "leadership seat", in part because the seat's first two members,
Harold Holt and
Sir John Gorton, were
Prime Ministers of Australia in the period between 1966 and 1971. More recently, the seat was held by
Peter Costello, a prominent member of the
Howard government as the longest serving
Treasurer of Australia and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. Costello resigned from the seat on 19 October 2009, and was succeeded in the
ensuing by-election by fellow Liberal
Kelly O'Dwyer, who would go on to become a minister in the
Abbott and
Turnbull governments. O'Dwyer retired in 2019. At that election,
Labor came reasonably close to winning this seat for the first time ever, with Labor's highest two-party preferred vote in the history of the seat (46.12%). Liberal candidate
Katie Allen, however, saw off a challenge from barrister
Fiona McLeod, despite suffering a swing of six percent, making Higgins marginal against Labor for the first time ever. Allen became the first Liberal candidate to come up short of an outright majority on the first count. High-profile
Greens candidate
Jason Ball also contested the seat, receiving almost a quarter of the vote. At the 2022 election, Labor took the seat for the first time. While Allen led Labor challenger
Michelle Ananda-Rajah for most of the night, on the seventh count the Green candidate's preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Ananda-Rajah, allowing Ananda-Rajah to win on a swing of 4.7 percent. Higgins is the only Division to have been held by two Prime Ministers. This occurred when Holt went missing while Prime Minister, and then-Senator Gorton used the
ensuing by-election to transfer to the House. Prior to 2022, it had only been out of Liberal hands for eight months in its existence, when Gorton became an independent to protest against
Malcolm Fraser's becoming Liberal leader. The seat is one of the few to have produced two federal Treasurers; Holt and Costello served as Treasurers during their respective tenure in Higgins. Another member, Kelly O'Dwyer had a stint as Assistant Treasurer. ==Name==