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CANBERRA - Australia is bracing itself for six long weeks of bitter political campaigning as Prime Minister John Howard attempts a fifth - and final - term in power.
Promising to hand over to long-suffering deputy Peter Costello well before the following election, Howard has launched his battle for the November 24 poll with appeals for recognition of 11 years of economic prosperity and warnings against the inexperience of Labor leader Kevin Rudd.
Rudd will respond with blistering attacks on Howard and his Government as a tired, unimaginative and out-of-touch Administration in control of a dynamic country that needs fresh leadership.
The latest polling continues to predict a commanding win by Labor.
After a long and uninterrupted run of polls forecasting a Labor landslide since Rudd became leader last December, a Taverner poll in Fairfax newspapers yesterday handed the Opposition an 18-point lead over the Government.
If the 59 per cent two-party preferred vote in this poll was repeated at the ballot box, Howard would be buried by a landslide that would give Rudd 108 seats in the House of Representatives, Melbourne's Sunday Age reported. Howard would be left with just 40 seats.
But there is a large pool of swinging voters who will not make up their minds until the closing hours of the campaign, and Howard will be playing hard on latent suburban fears of economic mismanagement by an inexperienced Labor team.
"I believe this country's best years are ahead," he said after returning from a call on Governor-General Michael Jeffery to inform him of his intention to begin a gruelling six-week campaign for the November poll.
"It does not need new leadership. It does not need old leadership. It needs the right leadership ...
"Love me or loathe me, the Australian people know where I stand on all the major issues of importance."
Howard is aiming squarely at the battlers, promising an unemployment rate below even the present 33-year low, help for families under severe pressure from rising food prices, the high cost of petrol, and family-friendly policies such as more assistance for child care.
But his economic credentials have been damaged by a number of interest rate rises that have squeezed household budgets and pushed home ownership even further out of the reach of many Australians, adding to other areas in which his record is a double-edged sword.
While business and conservative analysts have praised his sweeping industrial reforms, the resulting WorkChoices legislation has been increasingly unpopular among workers who have lost many of their former rights, protections and conditions.
Labor and unions have been waging a bitter war against Workchoices - which Rudd has promised to dump and replace with new collective and family-friendly arrangements - and polling has indicated industrial relations will be a crucial battleground.
Two-thirds of respondents to yesterday's Taverner poll said the legislation would strongly influence the way they voted.
Polls have also pointed to other serious problems for Howard, including his environmental record and his refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocols despite his late conversion to climate change and his advocacy of new action at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders' summit in Sydney.
A further liability is the deeply unpopular war in Iraq, which most Australians believe has placed them more at risk of attack by terrorists, but which Howard yesterday again committed his Government to, saying that withdrawal now would be a mistake.
Rudd - also a strong supporter of the US alliance and involvement in Afghanistan and the war on terror - has promised a phased withdrawal from Iraq in consultation with Washington.
Howard has also tried to take the battle into Labor territory, with last week's surprise announcement that if re-elected he would hold a referendum on a preamble in the constitution recognising the special place of indigenous Australians.
While supported in principle by Rudd and welcomed by many on both sides of the political divide, the election-eve move has also been greeted with cynicism.
But Howard said yesterday he would delay the transfer of power to Costello until the referendum had been held because he was determined to see his bid for formal recognition of Aboriginals through. This would mean Costello would not move into the top job until mid-way through the next term.
Polling shows that Costello may in fact inherit only ruins. Commenting in the Sunday Age on his latest poll, Taverner's Philip Mitchell-Taverner said the results were far worse for the Liberals than he had expected and Howard's only hope lay in discrediting Rudd.
"[Rudd] seems impregnable at the moment, despite concerns that he has not proven himself as a leader yet."
Rudd has cautioned against over-confidence, warning that the gap between the parties would narrow as the election neared. He said that fresh leadership was needed in the economy, health and the environment. "I'm offering ... a plan for the future and a clear-cut commitment to work for the future."
