KEY POINTS:
CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard today starts his final week of campaigning for Saturday's elections so far behind the only question remaining is how large a majority Labor will win.
Although detailed analysis of marginal seats indicates the final result might be far closer than the broader, nationwide polls indicate, all continue to predict victory for opposition leader Kevin Rudd.
Howard, whose 11-year run as Prime Minister is the nation's second-longest and one of its most prosperous, remains at great risk of losing his Sydney seat of Bennelong.
Latest polling also shows his Environment and Water Resources Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, under similar threat in the eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth.
If Labor's consistent 8-to-10-point lead in the polls does translate into a uniform national swing, Rudd would be swept to power in a landslide that would decimate the present Liberal leadership, toppling ministers across the country.
Rudd is already talking of his first acts when he takes office, while still warning his lead is much narrower than polls depict, and that the final count could go down to the wire.
The Government will this week renew its furious seat-by-seat campaign, thumping local issues and promoting local candidates in a bid to save besieged marginal seats from the Labor juggernaut.
Because of the spread of voters across the electorates, Howard could still keep power by winning 48 per cent of the national vote, provided it fell in the right places.
His theme will remain the economy, and the threat Labor poses to it.
But Howard's credibility has been damaged by a National Audit Office report detailing a Government vote-buying spree before the 2004 election, and A$9.4 billion ($11 billion) in new promises at last week's campaign launch alone.
The scale of campaign pledges was attacked by economists and came as the Reserve Bank warned that massive Government spending would push interest rates up again.
Howard is targeting the economy because it is his strongest ground, and in the hope that in the next six days enough wavering voters will be frightened back to the Government.
"Should you risk our prosperity in the hands of a union-dominated, inexperienced group of men and women?" he asked.
Deputy Liberal leader and Treasurer Peter Costello, who will take over as prime minister during the next term if Howard wins, is hammering the same theme. He said Rudd - a former diplomat - only wanted to flit about on the international stage.
"This morning Mr Rudd said the first five things he would do if he became prime minister. None of them related to tax, interest rates or jobs [instead], a lot of stuff about what he would do on the international stage, Kyoto [climate change protocols] and Iraq," Costello told Channel Nine.
"Nothing about what concerns mums and dads and what worries them about their children's futures."
In an interview with Sydney's Sun-Herald, Rudd listed his top five priorities, in order, for his first days in office: ratification of the Kyoto protocols; opening negotiations with the states to reform Australia's struggling hospital system; a new high-speed broadband network, connected to all schools; upgrading trade training centres in secondary schools; and beginning negotiations with the United States to bring Australian combat troops home from Iraq by the middle of next year.
Latest Newspoll and Galaxy polls targeting marginal seats both pointed to defeat for the Government, with Newspoll also indicating the size of the hit Howard has taken among the nation's youth.
The Newspoll, in the Weekend Australian, said Rudd maintained a huge primary-vote lead of 750,000 voters aged 18-34 sufficient on their own to deliver victory to Labor with a lead of 78,000 among those aged 35-49.
Howard has a lead of 60,000 primary votes among the over-50s.
Rudd will continue to punch back on the economy to take advantage of the blows Howard has taken following the sixth interest rate rise since promising during the 2004 election campaign to keep rates at record lows.
HANGING ON
Australia's most vulnerable seats and the majorities:
Government
Kingston, South Australia - 0.5 pc
Bowen, Queensland - 0.5 pc
Wakefield, S. Australia - 0.7 pc
Paramatta, NSW - 0.8 pc
Makin, South Australia - 0.9 pc
Labor
Hindmarsh, S. Australia - 0.1 pc
Swan, Western Australia - 0.1 pc
Macquarie, NSW - 0.5 pc
Cowan, Western Australia - 0.8 pc
Bendigo, Victoria - 1.0 pc
THE AUSTRALIAN ELECTION: WEEK SIX
On Thursday John Howard will rise in Canberra's National Press Club to deliver his final speech of the campaign for Saturday's election and quite probably his last as Prime Minister.
He will have followed Labor leader Kevin Rudd, whose speech on Wednesday will be made after another run of polls forecasting the end of Howard's four-term Government.
But the major polls tracking nationwide trends which continue to give Rudd a lead of 8-10 points in the two-party preferred vote that decides Australian elections may not give an accurate forecast.
Swinging voters are crucial in marginal seats, many of which have been altered by boundary changes that have altered their demographic composition.
A Galaxy poll in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph said that contrary to predictions of a Labor landslide, Rudd was instead likely to squeak home after a nail-biting count.
The poll showed a Labor lead of 4.5 per cent in 20 marginal seats - less than half the lead recorded in national polls, but still sufficient to cross Rudd's victory threshold of a net extra 16 seats.
On the Galaxy figures, he would pick up an additional 18 seats.
The poll found that New South Wales could be the key to a Rudd victory by handing Labor nine Government seats, including those of Howard and Environment and Water Resources Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Nothing would change in Victoria, and in his home state of Queensland Rudd could gain only two extra seats although eight other Government seats remain extremely vulnerable.
Labor could also gain three seats in South Australia. But Howard remains strong in Western Australia.
A Westpoll for the Western Australian newspaper gave the Government its only national or state lead - 52 per cent to Labor's 48 per cent - on a two-party preferred basis.
A Newspoll in the Weekend Australian also pointed to victory for Labor in the marginals.
Its poll of 18 Government-held marginal seats in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia gave Labor an 8-point lead of 54 per cent over the Government's 46 per cent.
