Australian Prime Minister John Howard calls election

The Times ^ | 10/14/07 | Bernard Lagan, Sydney

[bruinbirdman]

Australians will to go to the polls on November 24 with the Labor Party poised to bring to a crushing end Prime Minister John Howard's more than ten years in office.

Mr Howard, 68, who refused to hand over power to his younger deputy, Peter Costello before the poll, will pin his hopes for winning a fifth consecutive general election on a booming economy, record low unemployment and the Government's economic management.

Win or lose, it will be Howard’s last election campaign as he has said he will stand aside half way though, should he win another term.

Howard, who went to the Governor General in Canberra on Sunday morning to dissolve the Parliament and call the election, later told a news conference that the poll date would be November 24.

“Love me or loath me, the Australian people know where I stand on all the issues that are important to their future, “ he told reporters.

Seeking to play down his age and long time in office as issues in the campaign, Howard said Australians did not need new leadership or old leadership - just the right leadership.

Howard is banking on a long six-week campaign to achive what he has been unable to do all year — derail the surging Labor leader, Kevin Rudd.

Rudd, a blond, boyish-looking 50-year-old, has sent the Labor Party soaring in opinion polls since wrestling the leadership last December from Kim Beazley who lost two elections to Howard. The lastest poll shows Labor winning 59 per cent of the vote.

A former diplomat, public servant and China specialist, before entering Parliament nine years ago, Rudd has not relied on charm to build Labor’s crushing lead in the polls. Rather he is serious-minded, at times dour, and policy and strategy obsessive. He proclaims his own conservatism and has ruthlessly enforced discipline.

Rudd’s determination to deny Howard opportunities to unleash his famed populist skills against the Labor Party has the downside - for ardent Labor Party supporters at least — of closely aligning Labor’s policies with those of the Howard Government.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, said last week that the two biggest parties were "barely distinguishable". Others have been less diplomatic — pointing out that if Rudd becomes any closer to Howard then he will need to seek "Mrs Howard’s permission".

In reality, Rudd is offering Australians a minimal-risk chance to end the Howard era and elect a Labor Government that essentially offers the status quo.

A Rudd Labor Government would wind back Howard’s workplace reforms, widely seen as heavily favouring employers by encouraging the exploitation of weak employees, mount a staged withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq and ensure the abolition of Howard himself.

Rudd is untested in an election campaign while Howard is a veteran and has proven success on the hustings. The Labor Party needs to win 16 more seats in Australia’s 150-seat House of Representatives to take office — a highly challenging task despite its lead in the polls.

It is likely Howard will use the long campaign to undermine Rudd’s leadership credentials by emphasising the Labor leader’s lack of experience in any national Government and pointing to his own Government’s long period of economic prosperity.

The formula has worked in the past for Howard — notably when he demolished Labor’s last great hope, the young firebrand, Mark Latham, who led Labor into the last election in 2004.

Latham, crushed, later walked out of the Parliament and the party.

Kevin Rudd, is unlikely to prove as large a target.