Bet the AP writer hated to report this.
Latest results give Howard government lead in Australia's election
- MIKE CORDER, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, October 9, 2004
(10-09) 03:41 PDT SYDNEY, Australia (AP) --
Australian Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal Party took a substantial lead over the opposition in nationwide elections Saturday, and both sides said the government, a steadfast U.S. ally in the Iraq war, was all but certain to retain power.
With polls closed and about 32 percent of votes tallied, Howard's government had 53 percent of the vote and Labor 47 percent, Australian Electoral Commission figures showed. At least one government minister was ready to declare Howard had won a fourth term.
Howard "clearly will be re-elected prime minister tonight at his fourth election," Finance Minister Nick Minchin said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.
Labor leaders were already pessimistic about their chances.
"I think at this stage of the evening it's going to be almost impossible for Labor to win this election," Labor Sen. Robert Ray told Channel Nine television. "We are too far behind in too many seats at this stage for victory.
The vote was widely seen abroad as the first referendum for the three leaders who launched the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, with President Bush facing a ballot showdown next month and Britain's Tony Blair probably facing voters next year.
Howard's conservative government had promised to keep Australia's troops in Iraq, while Labor leader Mark Latham had pledged to pull out Australia's soldiers by Christmas.
At home, voters had been more focused on the economy, health and education than on Howard's unpopular decision to join the Bush coalition, and pre-election polls had given him a slight edge.
In one encouraging sign for the government, Howard's party was on track to win two seats from Labor on the southern island of Tasmania, according to early results. That will make Labor's task much harder on the on the mainland, where it must win 15 seats from the government to gain a majority in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament.
The campaign also has hinged on personalities, with three-term incumbent Howard seen as colorless but a reliable steward of the economy, and Latham perceived as young and energetic, but also inexperienced and sometimes undisciplined.
Howard sent 2,000 troops to Iraq last year despite protests that portrayed him as Bush's lackey. Australia now has 900 military personnel in and around Iraq, though none in combat roles. No Australian soldiers have been killed.
Howard's Iraq policy became an issue this week after chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer found Saddam Hussein did not have a weapons of mass destruction program at the time of last year's invasion -- a major reason advanced by Bush, Blair and Howard for the war.
"I believed the intelligence and it's a disappointment to me that the intelligence has not been borne out," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Friday. "You have to make decisions based on the information you have at the time, and the information we had at the time justified what we did."
Howard used his last news conference of the campaign to attack Labor's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq.
"If Australia were to cut and run from Iraq, it would send a very bad signal to the world," he said.
Latham says he wants to focus Australian anti-terror efforts closer to home in the Southeast Asian region.
That's a clear nod to his country's fears of terror after the Oct. 12, 2002 bombings on Bali Island that killed 202 people, many of them Australians, and the bombing of the Australian Embassy on Sept. 9 in which nine people died.
Howard voted Saturday at a Sydney primary school after taking a walk around Sydney Harbor, where he asked passers-by not to use their votes to punish his conservative coalition for unpopular policies.
"It's certainly not an occasion for anyone to think they can give us a protest kick and still re-elect us -- if enough people do that we'll lose," he said.
At the polls, a man in line said to the prime minister: "Mr. Howard, if you win, I'm moving to Europe." Another woman asked him when he was going to stop lying to the Australian public. Howard ignored the man and said "thank you" to the woman.
A Newspoll survey published in The Australian newspaper said the Labor Party trailed Howard's center-right coalition 48.5 percent to 51.5 percent for 12 seats the government now holds that are considered most threatened. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
John Atkins, 59, voting in the Sydney electorate of Blaxland, said he didn't approve of Latham's plan to withdraw from Iraq, even though he initially opposed the Iraq deployment.
"I was very concerned when the Labor Party said it would pull out the troops by Christmas," he said. "We should never have gone in, but once we had we need to stay."
Latham shook hands with well-wishers as he entered his Sydney polling site. "We'll be seeking the support of the Australian people, particularly for a world-class health and education system, and taking the financial pressure off families," he said.
Howard's center-right government and the opposition both focused their campaigns on pledges to improve the education and health systems, and debated which party can best run the economy and maintain a boom fueled largely by rising property prices.
Australian voters chose candidates for all 150 seats in the federal parliament's lower house, the House of Representatives, and 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate. A total of 1,091 candidates were standing for the House of Representatives and 330 for the Senate. The country has 13 million registered voters.
Howard has repeatedly warned voters a Latham government would likely drive up interest rates -- a sensitive issue for millions of homeowners -- with proposals that include free hospital treatment for those over 75, more funding for state schools and tax cuts for low-income earners.
Australia's economy has grown every year that Howard's administration has been in office. Unemployment is close to all-time lows and inflation is just 2 percent.
Latham insists he can fund his policies and keep interest rates low and the economy growing.
Howard, 65, is in his ninth year in office and is expected to retire before serving a full three-year term if he wins.
If the 43-year-old Latham wins, he would become one of the country's youngest leaders.
"I think at age 43, I can take the country forward 30 years, more so than the prime minister, who's not able to give a commitment even about the next three years," Latham said Friday.
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