Australian PM faces high-profile journalist in poll

CANBERRA, Feb 26 (Reuters) A high-profile television journalist will try to unseat Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard in elections later this year as the opposition targets his personal constituency.

With his government struggling in the polls after 11 years in power, Mr Howard will have to fight former Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Maxine McKew to retain his upmarket Sydney seat of Bennelong, which he has held since 1974.

An on-line opinion poll published last week said Prime Minister Howard's seat was in danger of falling to the centre-left Labor party in the elections due in the second half of 2007, with the opposition attracting 55 per cent support.

The poll reflected a national surge in support for Labor since the party elected the youthful Kevin Rudd as its leader in December. Opinion polls earlier this month showed Mr Howard's government 13.4 points behind the opposition.

McKew, who turned down Labor's offer to run for parliament in 2004, confirmed she would stand in Bennelong today. She retired late last year after 30 years as a senior television journalist and magazine columnist.

''It's a serious endeavour,'' McKew told reporters on Monday.

''I feel it's the best thing I can do to help Kevin Rudd become the country's next prime minister.'' After electoral boundaries were re-drawn, Mr Howard holds the seat by a margin of just four percent, which analysts said puts him at risk of becoming the first prime minister since 1929 to lose his seat in a national election.

''He should be worried,'' election analyst Antony Green told ABC radio today.

Mr Howard, however, shrugged off the latest challenge and said he always intended to fight hard to retain his seat in parliament.

''But when I get news like this it only steels my resolve to work even harder for the people I have had the privilege of representing for the last 30 years,'' PM Howard told Australian television.

Mr Howard's Liberal-National Party coalition government has won four consecutive elections since 1996, and secured a 27-seat majority at the last elections in October 2004.

Labor needs to win 16 more seats to win power at the coming elections, due any time from August but widely expected to be called in October or November.

REUTERS SHB RN0904