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In about minutes, polling booths across the eastern side of Australia will close, and counting will begin in the 2007 Australian election. I - and anybody else - who wants to become involved - will be posting in this thread updates based on Australian TV concerning the count.

PRIME Minister John Howard has kicked off election day with his usual walk along Sydney Harbour. Dozens of people including journalists, film crews, well-wishers and protesters gathered outside Kirribilli House before Mr Howard emerged about 6.30am (AEDT) today. One Liberal supporter asked Mr Howard to sign a copy of his biography, John Winston Howard, as other supporters, holding a sign which read John Howard Forever, wished him luck today. One described Mr Howard as the Rocky Balboa of Australia, ``the comeback king''.

KEVIN Rudd and Labor are the frontrunners in the 2007 election race but a late voter surge to John Howard and the Coalition has turned the poll into a tight contest. As both leaders blitzed the key battleground of Queensland yesterday, the election became a real contest in the last 72 hours of a gruelling six-week campaign. The final Newspoll survey of the election shows the Coalition virtually equal to the ALP on primary votes, 43 per cent to 44per cent, which is the Government's best performance in more than a year. The Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Weekend...

THE 2007 election has become a real contest in the final 72 hours of a gruelling six-week campaign. After he was written off as a ‘has-been’, John Howard’s last week of campaigning will give the Coalition hope of pulling off a miraculous victory tomorrow. Labor is still in front and favourite to win the 2007 election but the latest Newspoll survey is showing a late surge to the Howard Government, particularly in Queensland and Western Australia. Newspoll’s two-party preferred figure, based on preference flows at the 2004 election, has the Labor Party in front by 52 per cent to the...

FINALLY, the contest -- between a man we barely know and a man we know too well -- is drawing to a close. ..... Australians don't like to eject governments; voters have done it only four times in the past 58 years. In each case there's been a very real sense that those administrations -- McMahon in '72, Whitlam in '75, Fraser in '83 and Keating in '96 -- had run their race; worse, that a continuation of their policies would actually do damage to the nation. We don't get that sense about the Howard Government. True, its fourth term...

A LATE swing away from Labor has put tomorrow's election on a knife edge, an exclusive poll shows. Labor's lead has closed to 52-48, according to the respected Herald Sun/Galaxy poll taken on Tuesday and Wednesday. A similar result tomorrow, with a uniform national swing of 4.7 per cent since the last election, would see Labor win 15 seats – one short of the 16 it needs to form government in its own right. This would leave Federal Parliament in turmoil and the prime ministership in the hands of "kingmaker" independents. The Galaxy poll shows the major parties level on...

JOHN Howard is ending a bruising final week of the campaign within striking distance of a stunning fifth election victory. Labor is narrowly ahead after the allocation of preferences, 52 per cent to the Coalition's 48 per cent, according to authoritative pollsters Galaxy Research.

THE Coalition's election hopes have been bolstered by a poll putting it closer to Labor than any time during the election campaign. The Galaxy poll reportedly has Labor with a primary vote of 52 per cent and the Coalition with 48 per cent. ... Liberal sources insist that the electorate’s mood is more uneven than the headline polls have indicated until now and that the election is closer than thought. John Howard told the National Press Club today that he still believed the Coalition could win, and then promptly jumped onto a plane to blitz marginal seats in Queensland. Kevin...

PRIME Minister John Howard is still in the race to win a fifth term, but a new poll predicts Kevin Rudd's challenge will narrowly succeed in Saturday's federal election. An exclusive Galaxy poll conducted for the Sunday Herald Sun in the campaign's fifth week showed a tighter race for The Lodge. Labor would win 18 seats -- two more than it needed -- with a 5.5 per cent swing in 20 of nation's key marginal seats, the poll found. The surprising poll results emerged as the Opposition Leader revealed he would take advice from Mr Howard were he to become...

JOHN Howard enters the final week of his last campaign facing defeat as Kevin Rudd and Labor hold their election-winning lead in key marginal seats. According to the latest Newspoll survey, covering both parties' election launches this week, the Coalition has failed to peg back Labor's lead in the Government's 18 most marginal seats in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. On primary votes in the 18 seats, Labor extended its lead in the past two weeks to five points -- 47 per cent to the Coalition's 42per cent -- to give the ALP a two-party preferred lead of 54...

A PROTESTER tried to rush at Prime Minister John Howard in Adelaide today but was stopped by bodyguards. Mr Howard had just begun making an address at the Adelaide Convention Centre when a man stood up from the audience and ran towards the stage. The man – who was carrying an object that appeared to be a basket - was tackled by Federal Police just metres from the stage.

THIRTY-FIVE years in public life and Janette Howard has only ever been portrayed two ways. The less flattering is the portrait of a politics-obsessed woman pulling her husband's strings and urging him on and up. The flip side is that of a woman who has forged a strong marriage and raised healthy, normal children who seem to genuinely like their parents. But if Mrs Howard is frustrated by either portrait, she is not going to admit it. Not today, not in the middle of what is proving to be a particularly tricky election campaign. It makes her arguably one of...

JOHN Howard has fought back in key marginal seats in NSW and Victoria, giving the Coalition at least some new hope of winning the election, although Kevin Rudd has forged ahead in Queensland and South Australia. A special Newspoll survey of the 18 most marginal Coalition seats in four states reveals Labor can achieve its winning target of taking an extra 16 seats -- three or four in each of NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. But the survey suggests the extent of the Coalition's losses will be between eight seats -- which would allow it to easily retain government...

This evening, Australian time, in about two and a half hours, the only Leaders debate of the Australian Election campaign will be held between Prime Minister John Howard and Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd. The election will be held on November 24th. Back when I joined Free Republic in 2004, I was somewhat surprised at the interest shown in Australia's Federal Politics, and one of the earliest things I was involved in was a live thread on Australia's election night. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1239827/posts I intend to be involved in a similar live thread on election night this year, but I thought...

JOHN Howard has slashed Kevin Rudd's poll lead in a tax cut-fuelled fightback confirming the election will be a hard fought contest after all. The Herald Sun/Galaxy poll - the first conducted since the $34 billion tax cut was unveiled on Monday - reveals the Coalition has halved Labor's two-party preferred lead from 12 per cent to 6 per cent in just under four weeks. While a Rudd-led Labor Party would still be swept comfortably to power with a uniform 6 per cent swing, the poll confirms the early tax gamble has paid off, giving Mr Howard control of the...

Official announcement by Prime Minister John Howard on now. Parliament will be prorogued noon tomorrow, Parliament will be dissolved noon Wednesday, election 24th November 2007. It's on.

Prime Minister John Howard is at Government House in audience with the Governor General - believed to be asking for the dissolution of Parliament to call for a General Election

PRIME Minister John Howard has left Kirribilli House for Canberra, where he could finally head to Government House tomorrow morning to call the election. A spokesman for Mr Howard said the prime minister had left his Sydney residence a short time ago for Sydney airport and flight to Canberra. With politicians scheduled to return to Canberra for parliament on Monday, speculation was peaking that Mr Howard would call the election tomorrow. That would point to a poll on November 17 or 24.

JOHN Howard is set to call a November 24 election tomorrow, riding on the momentum of his dramatic Aboriginal reconciliation turnaround, and his record on economic management and national security. The Prime Minister is expected to visit Governor-General Michael Jeffery this weekend after yesterday releasing a five-point value statement to guide his policy planning. Mr Howard also finalised a series of administrative decisions and appointments to clear the decks for the formal campaign. As Kevin Rudd attacked his Government as stale and out of new ideas, Mr Howard stoutly defended his decision to propose a referendum to provide constitutional recognition...

A FEDERAL election will be held by early December, Prime Minister John Howard says. But Mr Howard said today he intended to keep governing and "doing things" before triggering the election. "(The election) will be held some day between now and early December," Mr Howard said on ABC radio.