Abbott on track to win as Australia votes

Australians vote in national elections tomorrow with Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd facing defeat to conservative challenger Tony Abbott, culminating a five-week race that descended into cheap shots and personality politics.
Some 14.7 million people will cast votes across the huge country from 8:00 am (0330 IST Friday) in a mandatory ballot, which opinion polls say will be won by Abbott, ending six years of Labor rule.
The most recent poll today showed centre-left Labor trailing Abbott's Liberal/Nationals 47 to 53 per cent on a two-party basis, with the newspaper saying the coalition could pick up an extra 20 to 25 seats in the 150-member lower House of Representatives.

The latest predictions point to him taking a landslide 87 seats to Labor's 60.
Rudd has struggled for traction after toppling Julia Gillard, Australia's first female prime minister, as Labor leader just weeks before calling the election and despite intense campaigning he appears destined to at least three years in opposition.
"For the future, my priority is jobs, more jobs, and jobs, health, hospital and broadband and to keep support for cost of living pressures," said Rudd in a last ditch pitch for votes.

Despite what the polls are saying, he remains upbeat, saying today he believes he only needs to pick up "somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000" undecided votes to win.

"Knocking around some of these local communities in recent days, amongst our candidates, there's been a bit of a spring in their step," he said.
Abbott, 55, has made a paid parental leave scheme his "signature" policy, while pledging to scrap the carbon tax and make billions of dollars of savings to bring debt down.
"It's like being in a grand final, five minutes to go, only a goal or two in it, anything could happen," Abbott said, refusing to get ahead of himself.