Sunday, December 02, 2007

... it happened!

After more than 30 years, Bennelong is no longer a Liberal seat, and John Howard is no longer a sitting member. I heard on the news tonight that Maxine McKew has claimed victory in the seat (although the APH website still claims the seat is undecided).

This is the first time that I have regretted no longer living in that electorate (having grown up there and had John Howard as my local member for about half of my life). With the result so touch and go, it would have been the first time that my vote actually meant anything, as it seems that most places where I have lived since then have been very safe seats for one side or the other.

Before the election, I was planning to do a bit of a victory dance, singing: "ding dong! the witch is dead!" if Howard lost, but after his amazingly gracious speech conceding the election, I kind of feel sorry for the guy, and think it would be unnecessarily nasty of me to be so excited about his defeat.

So maybe I'll just have a quietly excited phone conversation with my mother about the joys of having a new local member in Maxine after so long with "Honest John".

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