Howard launches election campaign

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Australian PM John Howard has officially launched his campaign for re-election in the city of Brisbane.

With less than two weeks before the vote, Mr Howard is seeking a fifth term but analysts predict a heavy defeat.

Mr Howard is trailing his Labor rival in opinion polls. Recent rises in interest rates, now at an 11-year high, appear to have cost him support.

The prime minister said jobs, childcare, education and affordable housing were his key policies.

He said a re-elected coalition government would introduce tax-free home savings accounts for all Australians who do not yet own their first home.

He also focused on the strength of the Australian economy, arguing that the nation would be gambling with prosperity if it elected a Labor government.

He claimed that such an administration would be lacking in experience and expertise, and dominated by trade unionists.

Paying the price

The Australian daily newspaper published a poll that showed Mr Howard's centre-right coalition and the centre-left Labor Party with 45% and 55% respectively.

The BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says Mr Howard is paying a heavy price for promising to keep interest rates low, and seeing them rise six times since the last election.

He adds that Mr Howard is fighting to overturn an appetite for change among voters, despite the country enjoying 17 years of economic expansion with unemployment at 33-year lows.

Mr Rudd will launch his party's campaign on Wednesday, again in Brisbane, the capital of his home state of Queensland and a key election battleground where Labor holds just six of 29 federal seats.

AUSTRALIAN ELECTION More than 13.5m of Australia's roughly 21m people are registered to voteElectors will choose candidates for all 150 seats in the lower House of Representatives and 40 of the 76 seats in the upper house, the SenatePM John Howard has led the conservative Liberal-National party coalition to four election wins since 1996 and is seeking a final termKevin Rudd is taking the centre-left Labor Party to the polls for the first time as leaderElection issues to be the economy, environment and war in Iraq <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1883547.stm">Profile: John Howard</a> <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7043713.stm">Profile: Kevin Rudd</a>

Our correspondent says Mr Rudd's detractors complain that he has failed to carve out a distinctive political personality of his own, and is too similar to Mr Howard, styling himself as an "economic conservative".

His key policy differences to Mr Howard are the promised withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq and ratification of the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

Mr Rudd said that any policy promises Mr Howard makes are irrelevant because he has already said he plans to retire during the next term and will not be around to implement them.

"Because the government is increasingly politically desperate, what we're going to see is signs of Mr Howard saying anything and doing anything in order to win the election, but with this added kicker - that he will not be there to own responsibility for it," he said.