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Nick Squires

Sydney

John Howard is on the ropes. The veteran Australian leader, who has been in power for 11 years, risks losing not only the impending federal election but his constituency as well. He has held Bennelong, on Sydney's affluent North Shore, since 1974.

To be voted out would earn him the dubious distinction of becoming the first Australian prime minister to lose his seat in a ballot since 1929.

Key to his prospects is Bennelong's influential Chinese-Australian community, which  seems to be swinging behind his opponent, former television presenter Maxine McKew. A poll released on Monday found her leading the incumbent 53 per cent to 47 per cent.

Ms McKew spent years working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation  before  joining the opposition Labor Party last year.

Increasingly, it looks as though she will give the prime minister a run for his money.

The award-winning broadcaster is seen as bright and credible. At 54, she is considerably younger than the prime minister, who is 68 and recently became a grandfather.

The  Australian Chinese Forum has invited  her to  a meeting next week. 'We want to hear her vision for Bennelong, and her vision for Australia as a whole,' the forum's Tony Pang said yesterday.  'We want to know what makes her tick.'

A similar event was held recently by a local Chinese senior citizens' group, which afterwards threw its support formally behind Ms McKew.

As a Labor candidate,  she benefits from the Sinophile credentials of  party leader Kevin Rudd,  a former diplomat who spent several years in Beijing.  His  daughter Jessica, 23,  married  Chinese-Australian banker Albert Tse, 28.

'A lot of Chinese are very impressed by Rudd,' Mr Pang said.  'It's rare for a white guy to speak Putonghua and his is almost perfect. His tonation is very Beijing-style.'

So accomplished was Mr Rudd's Putonghua  that he chatted at length to  President Hu Jintao  during the recent Apec summit in Sydney,  which impressed the Chinese delegation.  'What they saw in Kevin at Apec was a modern, sophisticated, 21st century leader who can forge an independent foreign policy and speak to all leaders,' Ms McKew said this week.

Mr Rudd's emphasis on higher education and  interest in boosting the teaching of Asian languages had also struck Bennelong's Chinese and Korean communities, she said. 'They prize family and want to get on - education is central.'

The government is well regarded for its economic management credentials, but some of its other policies have failed to endear it to the Chinese community.

'Immigration is a big issue here,' Mr Pang said. 'Some Chinese families are worried that the citizenship test the government  introduced will make it impossible for them to become citizens.'

The test  requires all prospective citizens to  answer questions on Australia's history, political culture and sporting achievements. Critics have said it  discriminates against migrants from a non-English speaking, non-Anglo background.

Bennelong also has a sizeable Armenian community, which would like to see the next government recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915  by Ottoman Turks.

Last weekend, they held a primary school fete which both Mr Howard and Ms McKew attended.

The prime minister refuses even to refer to  his rival by name - recognition, perhaps, that the threat she poses is a real one.



Howard's opponent has inside running for the Chinese vote