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Australia goes to the polls in knife-edge election today
Australians went to the polls on Saturday in what was seen as a knife-edge election following the Opposition Labour Party`s late surge in opinion polls.
Australians went to the polls on Saturday in what was seen as a knife-edge election following the Opposition Labour Party's late surge in opinion polls.
Prime Minister John Howard, in office since March 1996, is seeking a third term for his Conservative Liberal-National coalition but a swing of only 0.8 per cent to the left-of-centre Labour Opposition would change the government. Labour leader Kim Beazley, who has backed the government's hard line on illegal immigration which swung the opinion polls behind Howard, emerged from the election campaign with credit after focussing on domestic issues.
A Herald/Acnielsen poll published in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday shows the coalition leads 52-48 per cent in two-party preferred terms while a newspoll survey published in The Weekend Australian reveals a rimary vote of 46 per cent to the coalition and 38.5 per cent to Labour.
It shows the coalition's vote after the distribution of preferences is 53 per cent, to Labour's 47 per cent.
A preferential voting system for its 150-seat House of Representatives -- the Lower House -- means each voter has to set an order of preference among the candidates.
The winner is the candidate with an absolute majority but if no-one has more than 50 per cent of the first votes, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to their next preference until one candidate has a majority.
Voting is compulsory so nearly all the 12.6 million registered to vote do so. The average turn-out rate is more than 95 per cent.
Prime Minister John Howard, in office since March 1996, is seeking a third term for his Conservative Liberal-National coalition but a swing of only 0.8 per cent to the left-of-centre Labour Opposition would change the government. Labour leader Kim Beazley, who has backed the government's hard line on illegal immigration which swung the opinion polls behind Howard, emerged from the election campaign with credit after focussing on domestic issues.
A Herald/Acnielsen poll published in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday shows the coalition leads 52-48 per cent in two-party preferred terms while a newspoll survey published in The Weekend Australian reveals a rimary vote of 46 per cent to the coalition and 38.5 per cent to Labour.
It shows the coalition's vote after the distribution of preferences is 53 per cent, to Labour's 47 per cent.
A preferential voting system for its 150-seat House of Representatives -- the Lower House -- means each voter has to set an order of preference among the candidates.
The winner is the candidate with an absolute majority but if no-one has more than 50 per cent of the first votes, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to their next preference until one candidate has a majority.
Voting is compulsory so nearly all the 12.6 million registered to vote do so. The average turn-out rate is more than 95 per cent.
Bureau Report