Maxine on the brink - ELECTION 2007:
The Sunday Telegraph
By MICHAEL WILKINS
MAXINE McKew last night celebrated
a nine-month political career by being onthebrink of
ousting Prime Minister John Howard from his north-western
The 53-year-old boilermaker's daughter, who gave up a
successful journalistic career to take on what many said was an impossible
fight, led a strong grassroots campaign in the crucial marginal seat.
Not since 1929, when then prime minister Stanley Bruce lost
his seat, has the nation's leader been defeated in his own electorate.
But above a council library that could soon carry a history
book with McKew's name writ large, Labor campaigners
cheered wildly as, minute by minute, their dreams came closer to being realised.
In the best Labor tradition, many of them had brought a
plate, but McKew brought thetaste
of victory within tantalising reach.
``I've never seen a political candidate like Maxine,'' State
Labor colleague John Watkins said last night.
``She has achieved an amazing result, regardless of what
ultimately happens, but she thoroughly deserves this victory if she gets it.''
With her partner, Labor powerbroker Bob Hogg at her side, McKew -- who moved from blue-ribbon Mosman
to contest Bennelong -- achieved an early 5.7 per
cent swing with almost 20 per cent of the vote counted.
Her celebrity brought others into the limelight to support
her cause.
Actors David Wenham and Rhys Muldoon yesterday turned out at
the Epping school at which McKew
casther vote to help distribute pamphlets.
Wenham made what looked like the right call when he said: ``It
appears to be a purple patch for Maxine today.''
McKew welcomed the man who was
once Diver Dan in theABC drama SeaChange
by declaring it was time ``