The Face of Doom: Election Tips
On Election Night 2007, Maxine McKew became the face of Labor victory. The former ABC presenter had become only the second person in Australian history to win a seat off the sitting Prime Minister and to Laborites and ALP sympathisers McKew became a heroine, the vanquisher of their great nemesis. John Howard had not only lost power after eleven years as Prime Minister: he had lost the seat of Bennelong that he had held since 1974. It was the kind of humiliation that made victory all the sweeter for the Labor Party faithful with McKew hailed as symbolic of a new era of Labor dominance.
McKew was jettisoned into the increasingly marginal seat of Bennelong in early 2007, a seat considered eminently winnable after a redistribution that favoured the ALP. On the back of strong support from the ALP machine, a well-directed local campaign aimed at winning support among the large Chinese and Korean communities and an increasing feeling of tiredness towards John Howard, McKew provided Labor with Bennelong for the first time.