Battle for Bennelong, The

Intheblack, Mar 2008 by Parker, Derek

The Battle for Bennekmg By Margot Seville Melbourne University Press, $24.95

This is one of the more interesting sub-stories from the 2007 election, relating how John Howard lost his seat to newcomer Maxine McKew. Seville makes no secret of her friendship with McKew, and large parts of the book read like a campaign diary. She concludes that the battle was a David-and-Goliath story, but from her own telling this is by no means clear. McKew, after all, had some key advantages: name recognition, a husband from the upper echelons of the ALP, and the freedom to campaign on a full-time basis for months before the election was called. The real trump card, however, was that the seat had changed radically since Howard first won it In 1974, from redistributions and demographic shifts. In fact, the surprise is not that Howard lost it but that he had held it for so long. The book would have been improved had Saville provided more analysis and less adulation; there is a feeling of the whole project having been rushed. Nevertheless, it is a refreshing reminder that Australian democracy is built firmly on a base of local representation, community events, and look-me-in-the-eye handshakes.