Maxine Mc Kew - Politics

Politics

McKew was reported to have been a possible Labor candidate for the safe federal seat of Fowler at both the 2001 and 2004 elections. In 2004, it was the Labor leader Mark Latham who attempted to lure McKew with preselection to the Western Sydney seat. Latham recorded in his diary that his efforts failed because the broadcaster would not move from her home in Mosman to Labor's outer-suburban heartland, an area which he represented as the Member for Werriwa, while McKew told ABC Radio that a big factor in her 2003 decision was that she regarded the party as being without direction at the time. McKew had also been approached by John Hewson in the past to join the Liberal Party.

After resigning from the ABC in December 2006, McKew joined the Australian Labor Party in January 2007 as a special adviser on strategy to Labor leader Kevin Rudd. The Australian reported in early February that McKew was again in contention to gain preselection for the Division of Fowler, a safe Labor seat held by Julia Irwin who had supported Kim Beazley in the December leadership ballot. However the article also stated that a Labor source had suggested that a different seat was possible.

On 25 February Rudd's office confirmed that McKew would run against Prime Minister John Howard in the Division of Bennelong at the election, and McKew announced that she and Hogg were selling their Mosman home. The seat had once been a Liberal stronghold (it had been in Liberal hands since its creation in 1949), but it had shifted increasingly to Labor in recent years. Howard had held the seat since 1974, but in two out of the three elections he had fought since becoming prime minister, he'd needed to go to preferences to win another term in his own seat.

McKew outlined her position on issues such as the environment, education and women in The Bulletin in mid-2007.

Following a redistribution in 2006, the already marginal Liberal seat had become slightly more so, with Labor needing a swing of 4 percent to win it. This placed Bennelong just barely on the edge of seats that would likely fall to Labor in the event it won government. However, much of the area was already represented by Labor at the state level. A previous week's Morgan poll conducted for the website Crikey put Labor's two-party preferred vote in the seat at 55%. The state of play in the battle for the electorate, as it was on 12 October 2007, had leaked polls showing McKew with an edge over the incumbent.

On 24 November 2007, it was obvious when the first returns came in that the contest would be very tight. The ABC and several other sources projected Bennelong as a Labor gain, and Howard himself said in conceding the election to Rudd that it was "very likely" he had been unseated. However, McKew hesitated to claim victory, saying that the seat was on a "knife edge." In a press conference held on 26 November, McKew declared Bennelong "a Labor seat for the first time", but stopped short of formally claiming victory. Earlier Antony Green said there was "no doubt" McKew had won.

On 1 December 2007, while counting was still under way, McKew formally claimed victory in Bennelong, saying that she was "comfortably ahead" on the two-party vote. In her victory speech, McKew thanked Howard for his 30 years of service and could understand why he hadn't formally conceded, saying that "Mr. Howard and his family clearly had a huge amount to do this week." She said that her polling numbers indicated a uniform swing to Labor, with many people who had never voted Labor before crossing over to her. However, she said that many voters felt neglected by him in recent years. By most estimates Howard would have needed an improbable majority of the outstanding mail-in and absentee ballots to retain his seat.

It was not until 12 December that Howard formally conceded defeat, with the Electoral Commission formally declaring McKew the winner by 44,685 votes (51.4 percent) to Howard's 42,251 (48.6 percent). The final tally indicated that McKew had won victory on the 14th count due to a large flow of Green preferences to her; 3,793 (78.84 percent) of Green voters listed McKew as their second preference. This was enough for her to defeat Howard by 2.8 percentage points on the two-party vote.

A few days earlier, on 29 November, Rudd announced that McKew would be one of his Parliamentary Secretaries when his ministry was sworn in on 3 December. In this role she had responsibility for early childhood education and child care. Less than a week after the official declaration of her victory, McKew launched a book and described the Howard era of government as one characterised by "brutish" politics.

Maxine McKew delivered her first speech in the House of Representatives on 14 February 2008.

On 6 June 2009, in a ministerial reshuffle brought on as a result of the resignations of the Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Senator Jan McLucas, Maxine McKew became Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government.

McKew was defeated at the 2010 federal election, losing the seat of Bennelong to John Alexander, her Liberal Party opponent. She suffered a swing against her of more than 5 per cent, remarking as she conceded defeat that Labor's national campaign 'left a lot to be desired'.