The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Sydney

The deputy leader of the opposition Labor Party said Saturday that her party has won Australia's election. "On the numbers we've seen tonight, Labor is going to form a government," Julia Gillard said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.

If Labor wins, leader Kevin Rudd would become Australia's first new prime minister in a dozen years, a win that would usher in major changes on the country's approach to global warming and the Iraq war. Earlier, Australian Prime Minister John Howard will be defeated decisively in Saturday's general elections, according to an exit poll taken for television channel Sky news. The poll in key marginal seats gave Kevin Rudd's centre-left Labor Party 53 percent of the vote against 47 percent for Howard's conservative Liberal-National coalition, Sky news said.

The results, if backed up in the final tally, would give the 50-year-old Rudd a commanding majority in parliament.

The exit poll also showed Howard would lose his own seat of Bennelong in Sydney, which would make him the first prime minister to suffer such a humiliation in 78 years.

Howard, 68, has held the seat since 1974 and has been prime minister since 1996.

The exit poll result was announced half-an-hour before the first polling booths closed on the east coast of Australia and two-and-a-half hours before voting was due to end on the west coast.

Actual counting of the ballots was only due to begin after voting closed at 6:00pm local time -- 0700 GMT on the east coast and 0900 GMT in the west.

The exit poll surveyed more than 2,700 voters in 31 key marginal seats.

Extrapolating from the results, Labor would wind up with a 54 percent to 46 percent victory, Sky said.

Such a result would be in line with most opinion polls taken this year, but last-minute polls ahead of voting had shown Howard's party narrowing the gap significantly.

Labor's deputy leader Julia Gillard said after the exit poll had been announced she was confident of strong support for Labor because voters had been turned off by Howard's tough labour law reforms.