AUSTRALIA: Australians go to the polls on Saturday and seem set to return the government after a typically colourful federal election campaign, reports Padraig Collins from Sydney.
In Australia's 21 federal elections since 1949, the government has changed just four times.
The Liberal-Country Party Coalition ruled from 1949 to 1972. Labor was in power from 1983 to 1996. By comparison, the current Liberal-National Coalition is a relative pup at 8½ years old. (The Country Party became the Nationals 30 years ago).
When Australians vote to change their government it is usually preceded by a palpable anger at the incumbents. No such anger has emerged in this six-week campaign. If history repeats itself, John Howard will be returned for a fourth term as prime minister on Saturday.
While the opinion polls have varied considerably throughout the campaign, they have mostly shown the Coalition ahead. A poll in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Monday had the Coalition's primary vote at 48 per cent to Labor's 39. If that is borne out on Saturday, the government will be returned, probably with an increased majority.
Though Labor leader Mark Latham - looking more relaxed and energetic than the prime minister - has had a better campaign, the polls suggest the public has taken little notice. Only 9 per cent of Australian adults watched a televised debate between Howard and Latham on September 12th.
Though the campaign has been mostly about spending promises, there have been some (unintentionally) humorous incidents.
Campaigning in Queensland, Latham introduced Labor candidate Brian Molloy as Ivan Milat. Close enough to get away with it? Maybe not when Milat is the notorious backpacker serial killer serving multiple life sentences. It didn't help that Queensland's Courier Mail newspaper had earlier published a picture of Molloy holding a machine gun allegedly supplied by Muslim extremists in the 1980s. (Molloy, a terrorism expert, was researching the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines at the time).
On the other side, Liberal Senator George Brandis was forced to deny ever calling the prime minister "a lying rodent". He did not deny regularly referring to Howard as "the rodent" though. He couldn't. Every political correspondent in Canberra has heard him do so. Presumably he believes Howard to be a truthful rodent.
Fans of 80s Australian rock will be interested to know that former Go-Betweens drummer Lindy Morrison is running for the Democrats in Sydney's eastern suburbs (she hasn't a hope), and that ex-Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett is running for Labor in the next constituency over (he'll romp home).
The campaign always comes back to the basics of "show me the money" though. Promises made in recent weeks have left every marginal constituency barrel brimful with pork.
Though the Liberals are portraying themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, they have made $60 billion (€35 billion) worth of campaign promises. This makes Labor look positively spendthrift with promises of around half that, most of which, they say, will be funded by savings made elsewhere.
Every time Latham has made a promise to increase the funding of health, education, childcare or whatever, Howard has tried to top it. As the late US senator Everett Dirksen said: "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking serious money".
Latham, with some justification, has taunted that Howard is "spending like a drunken sailor". But the latest poll has found the public believe Howard has been more responsible in his election spending promises than Latham, by 42 per cent to 34.
In a concerted play for the Liberals' "grey vote" territory, Labor has promised that no one over 75 will have to pay for any medical treatment, regardless of their income. Medicare Gold they call it. The effect was muted somewhat when it emerged at a meeting of senior citizens' lobby groups in Brisbane that while they liked the idea, there was confusion as to which party's policy it was.
The latest tit-for-tat contest has been over Tasmanian trees. Labor promised to stop logging in old-growth forests on the island. The Liberals followed this by saying they would quarantine 170,000 hectares of old growth.
Labor's stance is a blatant play for Green preferences in the election, but it's a risky ploy.
Labor holds all five of Tasmania's federal parliament seats.
But one of those MPs, Dick Adams, has condemned the move and said that it could lead to Labor losing three seats there as logging is vital to Tasmania's economy.
Every vote counts, however, more so in Australia than most countries, due to compulsory voting. Tying up the smaller parties' preferences goes on behind the scenes, but is vital to Labor's chances if it is to gain the 13 seats it needs to win back power.
Final word to the bookies. As of last night, Labor were 9/2, while the Coalition was almost on evens. More than $750,000 of the $1 million bet so far is on the Coalition.
Mark Latham will be hoping that this is one of the very rare occasions that the betting industry gets it wrong.