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'This is tough, ugly and nasty'
21/11/2007 12:07 - (SA)
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| John Howard chats with participants during a luncheon meeting with business people in Sydney. (Rob Griffith, AP) |
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Sydney - Australian Prime Minister John Howard and rival Kevin Rudd traded bitter salvoes on Wednesday as they hunkered down for three days of "trench warfare" ahead of an election that could end Howard's 11-year rule.
With pollsters tipping Rudd to win Saturday's ballot by a landslide, each man warned supporters that the battle for power would be extremely tough.
"Whoever wins this election on Saturday will win by a nose," Rudd said in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra, his last major speech before the general election.
"This is tough, ugly and nasty. There will be trench warfare between now and Saturday," the 50-year-old contender for Australia's top job warned voters.
Rudd outlined his plans for government, saying Australia would shift up a gear and prepare for the future if his centre-left Labour Party emerged triumphant from the poll.
"Saturday will decide whether Australia gets stuck in the world's slow lane, letting other nations pass us by, or whether Australia decides to shift up a gear so we can properly realise our true potential as a nation.
"After 11 years it's now time to turn the page on this government. It's time for a new chapter in our nation's history to begin. I stand ready for the responsibilities of government," the former diplomat pledged.
Rudd accused Howard's government of squandering opportunities brought by Australia's economic boom and of introducing unfair labour laws that disadvantage workers.
'You couldn't be more wrong'
With the election shaping up to be a political fight to the death, both men used the final days of a marathon six-week campaign to launch scare tactics to discourage voters from choosing their rivals.
Howard, 68, warned that it would be dangerous to oust his Liberal Party-led coalition government at the peak of an economic boom.
"I say again to those people who think you can change a government without changing a country - you couldn't be more wrong," he told business leaders in Sydney.
"If we want the Australia we now have, if we want that nation and want it to continue and become even more strong and prosperous, that can only be achieved one way, and that is through the re-election of the coalition," he said.
The veteran political player urged voters not to seek change for change's sake, warning that electing a new government was not like receiving an unwanted gift.
"It's not like the Christmas present you didn't want and you can take it back at the Boxing Day sale, it's not like that, it's much harder than that," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation earlier.
Howard admitted that some voters may be considering voting Labour, even though they are not "grumpy" with the government, but cautioned that would derail economic growth and bring in a crop of inexperienced economic managers.
He also stressed that if Labour won the election, it would then control the federal government as well as all eight of Australia's state and territory governments, creating an unhealthy lack of balance.
Howard 'betrayed the trust of working families'
"If we have Labour governments across the country for the first time in our history there would be no checks and balances," he said.
As the latest survey by Newspoll indicated that Rudd was set to win the election with 54% of the vote compared to Howard's 46%, the prime minister, vying for a fifth term in office, insisted he could still win.
"We have three days left. Let me say to you my friends, I think it's a very winnable election," he told business leaders.
Labour meanwhile launched its own scare offensive.
With labour laws now the clear focus of the battle, Rudd claimed Howard and his ministers were liars who harboured plans to further relax Australia's labour laws and strip workers of fundamental protections.
Despite Howard's angry denials that secret documents drafted by the government two years ago heralded further overhauls of industrial relations laws, Rudd said the prime minister could not be believed.
"You can't trust anything Mr Howard says on the future of work choices," Rudd told reporters.
"Remember Mr Howard has betrayed the trust of working families already when he said at the last election there would be no increases in interest rates. They've gone up six times since then."
Meanwhile, as a blackout of political advertising was set to come into force at midnight on Wednesday, both Howard's and Rudd's teams were preparing to begin telephoning voters to get their message through.
- AFP
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