KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister John Howard is hanging on grimly as the final week of the campaign for Saturday's election offered the first, small, glimmer of hope that his Government might be saved by last-minute nerves in the key seats that will decide the outcome.
Even with new claims of panic and rebellion in Coalition ranks, and with the Government still on the defensive in the crucial areas of economic management and industrial relations, pollsters have reported a small but discernable shift back to Howard.
The nationwide swing continues to suggest a Labor landslide, but in the marginal seats where the major parties are waging a desperate very local war for swinging voters, the Opposition is not doing nearly as well.
A Patterson Market Research poll in the Canberra Times said yesterday that in the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, incumbent Liberal MP and Special Minister of State Gary Nairn had halved Labor candidate Mike Kelly's lead in the past five weeks.
Eden-Monaro has been won by the party that formed Government in every election since 1972.
And a new Morgan poll underlines emerging predictions of a tense, down-to-the-wire count on Saturday night, saying that Labor may be well ahead with 55.5 per cent of the national vote, but the swing was not uniform and varied by seats and states.
The poll said that in the marginals Labor needed to capture to get 16 extra seats, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd was not doing as well. Labour could win as few as 14 seats - costing victory - or as many as 24. The Morgan poll followed a Galaxy poll in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph, which tracked similar problems for Labor in key marginal seats. Galaxy said Labor probably would still win, but after a nail-biting count that would deliver Rudd 18 extra seats - just two above what he needs.
But with both sides recognising that the final days will be crucial in the furious battle for swinging voters and that any blunder could cost victory, Howard has been rocked with claims of disorder within his own house.
Sydney's Daily Telegraph quoted un-named senior Liberal figures critical of campaign tactics and angry at "silly mistakes" by senior ministers such as Health Minister Tony Abbott.
The newspaper's sources also said Environment and Water Resources Minister Malcolm Turnbull had criticised the Government's campaign, believed Howard would lose, and was preparing to challenge for the Liberal leadership after the election. Turnbull fired back on ABC radio, describing the report as gossip, hearsay and "absolute rubbish".
Rudd, who has maintained from the start of the campaign that it would be a close and hard-fought battle, was yesterday mobbed by crowds of students at Melbourne's Berwick Secondary School, one whom fainted in sweltering heat.