 By January 1996, amidst poor Labor polling statewide, media reports suggested that she would struggle to hold her seat, with clashing policies over airport noise emerging as a key campaign issue.She was easily defeated amidst the Labor landslide defeat at the 1996 federal election by Liberal candidate and former state MP Paul Zammit.Following her 1996 defeat, she was touted as a candidate either for Paul Keating's federal seat of Blaxland or for Zammit's former state seat of Strathfield; neither eventuated, with Keating's support for his staffer Michael Hatton blocking her in Blaxland, and she specifically out a career in state politics.