CANBERRA, Australia -- Australians headed to the polls on Saturday in an election that pits a ruling party marred by infighting and a much-maligned carbon tax against a conservative opposition led by a man who has never been particularly popular and has long been polarizing.
Despite the lack of overwhelming enthusiasm for opposition leader Tony Abbott, he seemed on track to guide his Liberal Party-led coalition to a victory, with opinion polls giving the coalition a commanding lead over the ruling Labor Party.
A poll by Sydney-based market researcher Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper on Saturday showed the coalition was leading Labor 54 percent to 46 percent. It was based on a random national telephone survey of 2,511 voters over three days this week and had a 2 percentage point margin of error. Newspoll has correctly picked the result of all 56 Australian federal and state elections since 1985.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was once widely beloved by the public, becoming the nation's most popular leader in three decades when he took on the top job in 2007. Now, his party is facing the prospect of an end to its six years in power — and a long stretch of conservative rule — amid deep voter frustration over years of party instability and bickering, and widespread hatred of a carbon tax on major polluters.
The carbon tax has long been a thorn in the side of the Labor Party. The previous Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, broke an election promise and agreed to impose the tax in a bid to form a coalition Labor needed to stay in power. Labor required the support of the minor Greens party — which insisted on the tax — in order to have enough seats in Parliament to control government.
The deal helped lead to her downfall, and in June, Gillard lost her job to Rudd in a vote of party lawmakers. Gillard herself came to power by unseating Rudd in a similar party coup three years earlier.
The Gillard vs. Rudd drama and the squabbling between their camps left many voters disillusioned. To some former Labor supporters, Abbott — once dubbed "unelectable" by a former boss — was seen as the lesser of two evils.
Abbott has vowed to scrap the carbon tax and instead introduce taxpayer-funded incentives for polluters to operate cleaner.
Polling booths opened at 8 a.m. Saturday in eastern Australia and were set to close 10 hours later, with western states voting another two hours beyond that due to time zones.
Abbott cast his vote Saturday morning at Sydney's Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club.
Abbott, a volunteer lifeguard, is often depicted by cartoonists wearing nothing but the red-and-yellow cap of an Australian lifeguard and Speedos. Men's swim briefs are known in Australia as "budgie smugglers" — a reference to the budgerigar, a small Australian parrot.
"I'm down here at Freshie Surf Club and you'll be pleased to see ... I'm in a suit, not in the budgie smugglers," Abbott told Nine Network television. "I sort of wish I was out there on the waves ... but Australia has a democratic duty to do today."
Abbott has long struggled to connect with women voters, with Gillard once famously calling him a misogynist and sexist in a fiery speech before Parliament. In a bid to improve his image, he introduced a paid maternity leave plan that would give mothers the taxpayer-funded equivalent of their salaries for six months. Yet the plan has proven divisive even within the Liberal Party, with some of Abbott's own allies dubbing it unaffordable.
Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.
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