JOHN Howard may not have changed his stripes during the 33 years he has represented Bennelong — but Bennelong has.

Once part of Sydney’s north shore WASP heartland, the electorate has become a magnet for upwardly mobile Australians from first- and second-generation immigrant backgrounds, particularly Chinese and Koreans.

Exclusive figures compiled by The Australian, based on data from the 2006 census, show that Bennelong has become the only Liberal- held seat among the top 20 in the nation for residents who speak a language other than English at home.

At 36.3 per cent, the number of non-English speakers in Bennelong is more than twice the national average of 15.8 per cent.

Well over half of Bennelong residents (58.8 per cent) were either born overseas or have parents who were, compared with 40.5 per cent nationwide.

On the face of it, this should be great news for high-profile Labor challenger Maxine McKew, especially after a redistribution last year reduced the Prime Minister’s margin to 4 per cent. Mr Howard has had a notoriously fraught relationship with the Asian community, courtesy of his 1988 comments about Asian immigration levels and a perception he was too slow to distance himself from Pauline Hanson. But to assume he cannot put up a decent fight against Ms McKew in Bennelong’s Asian communities would be once more to underestimate the man.

“I don’t know much about politics but I like John Howard,” says Katherine Song, 51, who arrived from South Korea with her husband and two children in 2000 and runs a discount fashion business in Eastwood.

“For the economy, he has been a good man,” she said. “I am very happy, my children got a better education.”

But local lawyer Justin Li, 25, said that while Mr Howard may be popular with recent arrivals, it was different for those who could remember his record.

“Mr Howard might be making a big deal out of his relationship with the Chinese community now, when his seat is marginal,” Mr Li said. “My question would be, where was he in 1996 when our community really needed strong leadership from the Prime Minister to speak out against Pauline Hanson?”

Oliver Yap, 54, who runs an

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estate agency in Epping with his wife Tracy, met Mr Howard earlier this month at a special meet-and-greet the Prime Minister organised for the Chinese business community.

“We liked him,” he says. Mr Yap says his two adult children, who work in finance and advertising, are “both very smart because of the good education they’ve received here”.

“We are not as confident as other races,” he says. “We always work very hard, and earn as much as possible, in case something happens. We are worried if the economy is no good, so we look for somebody who can run the country and manage the economy. Mr Howard has done a good job.”

Ms McKew spent yesterday afternoon campaigning at Marsden High School, in the electorate’s heart of West Ryde. The school caters for 46 different languages.

“In 1974, when John Howard took the seat of Bennelong, it was an overwhelmingly monocultural area,” she told The Australian.

“It is now a vibrant ethnic mix and you see that in the shops and suburbs all over Bennelong.”

Shane Easson, number-cruncher-in-chief for the NSW Labor Party, says the new numbers are definitely good news for Ms McKew and points to the impact of new arrivals on Labor’s vote in the state seats inside Bennelong.

“It is a big mistake to assume that these new groups are Labor voters, but they are getable,” he says.

“They are less WASP-ish. The people they have replaced tended to vote two-thirds Liberal.”