Word: bennelong
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...scale of the government's defeat. Labor had to capture 16 Coalition seats to win; at press time it had taken 24, with the outcome in five seats still in doubt. More shocking for the Coalition, Howard was hanging on by his fingernails to his northwestern Sydney seat of Bennelong - and appeared set to become the first Prime Minister since 1929 to be turned out of his own electorate...
...faced, local campaign workers, are prepared for a long night. They're decked out not in evening wear but those ubiquitous "Kevin 07" T shirts. As the fare shifts from nibbles to pies and sausage rolls, so the news changes. John Howard looks cooked in his own seat of Bennelong, generating the night's first full-throated roar. Better, Queensland is delivering. Labor's black sheep in recent elections, it's going to carry its local boy to the Prime Ministership. "We're a very partisan place," says Russell Griffiths in the center of a pulsing throng...
...Labor triumph in national elections, but few had forecast its scale. Labor captured at least 22 seats from the ruling Liberal-National coalition - including, it appears, the northwestern Sydney seat held for the past 33 years by Prime Minister John Howard. With 77% of votes counted in Sydney's Bennelong district, Howard trailed by several hundred votes. In an emotional speech Nov. 24 Howard took full responsibility for the conservatives' defeat. Then one of Australia's most successful leaders - and one of President George W. Bush's staunchest western allies - walked off the stage and into retirement...
Outsmarted by Howard on numerous fronts, Labor has been clever this time in the battle for Bennelong. In the broader fight, Howard was always going to be hard-pressed holding off the fresh-faced Opposition leader Kevin Rudd. Knowing that task would be even tougher if Howard could be distracted by a tough contest on his home turf, Labor announced in February that its candidate in Bennelong would be Maxine McKew, a distinguished, high-profile former television journalist. The partner of Bob Hogg, a former national secretary of the Labor Party, McKew still doesn't get close to Howard...
...Bennelong hub of Eastwood mall, constituents say they are enthralled by the ever-smiling McKew. "She's like a beauty queen," says Paul Besson, 57, who admits his dislike of Howard is so strong that "I would vote for Maxine even if she had a forked tail." An art promoter who asks to be identified only as Peter says he's voted for Howard in the past but not at the last election of 2004, and he won't be this time. While most politicians are loose with the truth, Peter says, Howard's dishonesty extends to matters...