Could Howard lose his seat in this years Federal Election?

John Howard has only 45% support on a two-party preferred voting system in his seat of Bennelong in a poll conducted by Roy Morgan Research and Crikey.com.au [1]. Which means that Howard would lose his seat if a Federal Election was held today!

I noticed an interesting posting on the Blogocray [2] site today by Shaun of Adelaide:

Actually this is not as far fetched as it sounds.. the last PM to make such an IR grab for power was the only PM ever to be unseated in a federal election - Stanley Bruce.

From Wikipedia-
“The Bruce-Page government won another term in 1928, but in 1929 Bruce, frustrated by a series of bitter industrial disputes, introduced legislation to dismantle the federal system of industrial arbitration. Hughes led a group of backbenchers who voted against the bill and brought the government down. At the subsequent election Labor won a landslide victory and Bruce lost his own seat - the only Australian Prime Minister to suffer such a fate.”

Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.

With GetUp [3], an NGO who’s latest campaign to send a letter to every voter in the Bennelong electorate outlining Howard’s position on the continuing detention of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay by the US, the situation gets even more interesting.

If he was to lose his seat he would no longer be the Australian Prime Minister, becoming only the second Prime Minister to suffer that fate.

Glossary:
1. The Liberal government introduced a substantial change to the Industrial Relations (IR) laws after the last election call “WorkChoices”. This legislation aims to put all employees on individual contracts where they can bargain away their rights such as overtime rates, holidays to get more base pay in the guise of improving productivity. The problem is that the employees are at the mercy of the employers who can now sack them for not accepting an agreement under changes to the “unfair dismissal” laws. It is now possible for small businesses to sack anyone for no reason at all.

2. The Bruce-Page government was a coalition which won the Federal Election in 1925 and subsequently in 1928. In 1929 he was defeated in Parliament when he tried to introduce Industrial Relation changes. Billy Hughes (a member of his own party) led a rebellion and defeated the government in bringing in the changes. This led to Bruce calling an election where he lost his seat. The only Australian Prime Minister to do so.

3. GetUp is a non-aligned political organisation based in Australia that aims to bring participation back into the Australian Democracy but mobilising like-minded voters.

References
1. www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-would-not-win-his-own-seat-poll/2007/02/19/1171733647023.html
2. blogs.news.com.au/news/blogocracy
3. www.getup.org.au/index.asp