Polls open in Australian elections
Australians were voting today in elections that pit a four-term prime minister selling his economic management record against a new-age challenger who rates global warming as his number one priority.
Labour Party opposition leader Kevin Rudd held a clear lead in opinion polls over Prime Minister John Howard heading into the ballot, but the margin appeared to be tightening late in the campaign.
Polling booths opened at 8am today local time (9pm Friday, Irish time) in eastern Australia and would close 10 hours later, with some 13.5 million people required to vote out of a population of 21 million.
Both sides said they expect the result to be close.
“I think it’s going to be very, very tight,” Mr Rudd told reporters after voting at a church hall in the upmarket suburb of Bulimba, Brisbane. “I think this will be won or lost by a nose.”
Mr Howard cast his ballot at a school in his Sydney suburban district of Bennelong, which is one of more than a dozen that is held with a tight buffer and that the government must hold to retain power.
Mr Howard faces the prospect of not only losing government, but the humiliation of becoming just the second sitting prime minister in Australia’s 106-year history of federal government to be dumped from Parliament.
“Bennelong is a marginal seat but I have always treated it with great care and affection, and I hope people return me,” Mr Howard told reporters.
A defeat for Mr Howard would mean a humiliating end to the career of Australia’s second-longest-serving prime minister and usher in big changes in the country’s approach to global warming and its troop deployment in Iraq.
Howard’s four straight election victories and more than 11 years in power make him one of Australia’s most successful politicians.
But, at 68 he is combating widespread perceptions that he has stayed too long.
The result will come down to a handful of districts where the race is tightest. Labour must win 16 more seats in the 150-member lower house of Parliament than it did in the last elections in 2004 to gain a majority and form a government.
The conservative Mr Howard is one of US President George Bush’s staunchest allies, and reshaped Australia’s image abroad with his unwavering support for Bush’s war against terrorism.
But Australia’s foreign relations are not expected to change much if Mr Rudd wins.
This election will be Mr Howard’s last, as he plans to retire in about two years even if he wins.
The six-week campaign was fought largely over economic management, and Mr Howard’s unpopular labour law reforms that critics say strip workers of their rights, and health and education.
But a strong underlying factor was the prospect of a generational change.
Mr Rudd, a former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, says Australia urgently needs new leadership who can deal with challenges like global warming and a better high-speed Internet network.
He says his first priority if he is elected will be to sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, something Mr Howard has refused for years to do.
Mr Rudd says he would withdraw Australia’s 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Mr Howard says all the troops will stay as long as needed.
