Higinbotham Province

Higinbotham
Victoria—Legislative Council
Higinbotham; Victoria—Legislative Council
State	Victoria
Created	1937
Abolished	2006
Area	108 km2 (41.7 sq mi)
Demographic	Metropolitan

Higinbotham Province was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Council.^[1] It existed as a two-member electorate from 1937 to 2006, with members serving alternating eight-year terms. It was considered a safe seat for the Liberal throughout its history, though it was won by Labor candidate Noel Pullen in Labor's landslide victory at the 2002 state election. It was abolished from the 2006 state election in the wake of the Bracks Labor government's reform of the Legislative Council.

It was located in the south-east of Melbourne. In 2002, when it was last contested, it covered an area of 108 km² and included the suburbs of Bentleigh, Black Rock, Brighton, Cheltenham, Mentone, Moorabbin, Mordialloc and Sandringham.

Members for Higinbotham Province

	Party	Year
James Kennedy	United Australia	1937	Member 2		Party
		1940		James Disney	United Australia
		1943			United Australia
	Liberal	1945			Liberal
	Liberal	1946		Arthur Warner	Liberal
	Liberal and Country	1949			Liberal and Country
		1949
		1952
Lindsay Thompson	Liberal and Country	1954
		1955
		1958
		1961
		1964		Baron Snider	Liberal and Country
	Liberal	1965		Baron Snider	Liberal
	Liberal	1967		Murray Hamilton	Liberal
William Fry	Liberal	1967
		1970
		1973
		1976
Robert Lawson	Liberal	1979
		1982		Geoffrey Connard	Liberal
		1985
		1988
Chris Strong	Liberal	1992
		1996		John Ross	Liberal
		1999		John Ross	Liberal
		2002		Noel Pullen	Labor

Election results

2002 Victorian state election: Higinbotham Province
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Michael Heffernan	60,580	45.7	-10.1
	Labor	Noel Pullen	52,445	39.6	+36.9
	Greens	Tony McDermott	16,451	12.4	+12.4
	Democrats	Derek Wilson	2,952	2.2	-39.1
Total formal votes			132,428	97.2	+0.3
Informal votes			3,845	2.8	−0.3
Turnout			136,273	92.7
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Noel Pullen	66,711	50.4	+6.5
	Liberal	Michael Heffernan	65,717	49.6	-6.5
	Labor gain from Liberal		Swing	+6.5