Pat Dollard | Young Americans

(AP) Australians went to the polls Saturday to decide whether to re-elect Prime Minister John Howard for a fifth term or oust him in favour of rival Kevin Rudd, ending 11 years of conservative rule.

Rudd has pledged a swathe of changes in domestic and foreign policy, including ratifying the Kyoto protocol on climate change and withdrawing Australian combat troops from Iraq, which Howard and his ally Bush have steadfastly refused to contemplate. Rudd rates global warming as the nation’s top priority.

The first ballots were cast from 8:00am (2100 GMT Friday) in the east of the country in a contest that could see US President George W. Bush’s stalwart ally either elected to a fifth term or kicked unceremoniously out of office.

The vote that opinion polls have long billed as a likely landslide for Rudd’s centre-left Labor Party may turn out to be a cliffhanger after two new surveys showed Howard narrowing Rudd’s commanding lead.

As 13.5 million voters in a nation of 21 million began filling out ballot papers from Australia’s remote outback to its bustling cities and the icy wastes of Antarctica, Howard said he was confident of victory.

“There has been a movement back to the government in the past week,” he said. “I believe we can win.

“It’s in the hands of the people but I’ll keep talking to them until six o’clock tonight,” he told reporters.

The 68-year-old repeated his mantra that ousting him when Australia’s economy is booming and unemployment is at a 33-year low was dangerous.

The long-serving leader has been struggling against sagging support that has seen former diplomat Rudd, 50, become the clear frontrunner. Howard could also face the humiliation of losing his parliamentary seat of 33-years.

Labor needs to gain at least 16 seats with a uniform swing of about five percent to seize power by winning an outright majority in the lower house of parliament, which has 150 seats.

More than 100 voter surveys in the last year have tipped Labor to win resoundingly as Howard’s Liberal-National coalition government battles the effects of 11 years in power and a long list of unpopular policies.

But Howard was offered a glimmer of hope that he might be able to pull off a Houdini-like escape and be returned to power when a new Newspoll showed him halving Rudd’s advantage to four percent.

The poll published Saturday showed Howard’s government trailing Labor by 48 percent support to 52 percent, down from an eight point gap just a week ago. Those numbers exactly mirrored a Galaxy poll on Friday.

But the results contrasted sharply with a Nielsen survey published Friday that showed Australia’s second-longest serving prime minister heading for a landslide defeat with 43 percent of support against 57 for Rudd.

Rudd, who will vote in his home town of Brisbane in eastern Queensland state, one of the crucial battlegrounds of the election, has long said that whoever wins will do so narrowly.

While Howard has made his management of Australia’s economy the main platform of his re-election bid, Rudd claims that boom is due mainly to China’s insatiable demand for Australia’s abundant natural resources.

Rudd, who like Howard bills himself as an economic conservative, also maintains that the prime minister has been in power too long and is out of touch with what Australians want.

“Mr Howard’s campaign has been all negative, in part because he knows he’s not going to be there as he’s retiring,” Rudd said, referring to Howard’s pledge to step down in 18 months.

The government in turn has said Labor cannot be trusted to manage the economy as the last Labor government presided over 17 percent interest rates and a 96 billion dollar national debt. It has also charged that Labor is beholden to left-wing trade unions.

Voters, many wearing board shorts and jogging outfits, who lined up under light drizzle in the seaside Sydney area of Manly, reflected the nation’s ideological choice.

“I like Labor’s policies as they relate to the future challenges this country is facing, particularly drought and climate change,” 48-year-old businesswoman Imogen Boas told AFP.

“On the economy I think Labor will be just as good,” she added.

But Richard Liverpool disagreed. “I am not prepared to risk Labor government, even though I do not agree with everything John Howard has done particularly Iraq,” he said.

“I’m not prepared to risk a return to industrial unrest,” he said.