Winning back former prime minister John Howard's seat of Bennelong, in Sydney's northwest, was the greatest pleasure of the last election, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
Mr Abbott was addressing the Liberal Party NSW division state council meeting in Sydney on Saturday.
"The greatest pleasure as we met for the first time as Liberal MPs after the election was to have Bennelong back," Mr Abbott told the gathering of party loyalists at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Parramatta.
"Bennelong will always be special to us and it's great to have Bennelong once more in our political centre court.
"Thank you so much, John Alexander."
Former ABC journalist Maxine McKew snatched Bennelong from Mr Howard in the 2007 election.
But she was ousted by Mr Alexander, a former pro tennis player, in the September poll.
Mr Abbott said the coalition ran a good campaign.
"We won the election in every sense except we didn't form government," he said.
He said the opposition needed to learn the lessons from the party's successes and focus on getting re-elected.
"Twelve months ago, at the federal level, our party was completely unelectable." he said.
"We were unelectable because we were divided and we did not know what we stood for - we fixed that and we became electable.
"As long as the Labor Party is the issue, we are eminently electable."
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