SYDNEY: Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison called federal elections for May 21 on Sunday, launching a come-from-behind battle to stay in power after three years rocked by floods, bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Morrison's conservative government is struggling to woo Australia's 17 million voters, lagging behind the opposition Labor party in a string of opinion polls despite presiding over a rebounding economy with a 13-year-low jobless rate of four percent.
"This election is about you. No one else. It's about our country, and it's about its future," Morrison said.
"I know Australians have been through a very tough time. I also know that Australia continues to face very tough challenges in the years ahead," he told a news conference in Canberra.
Polls show much of the electorate distrusts the 53-year-old leader, who fashions himself as a typical Australian family man and is unafraid of advertising his Pentecostal Christian faith.
In a punishing run-up to the vote, politicians, including two disaffected members of his own Liberal Party, have accused him of being a bully and an autocrat, one saying he had "no moral compass".
Aiming to end nine years of Liberal-National Party rule is 59-year-old opposition Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, a cautious campaigner who is focusing on Morrison's performance in the face of crises.
It is a tactic that appears to be working.
A recent Newspoll survey showed Labor leading the coalition 54 percent to 46 percent on a two-party basis.
Morrison and Albanese were in a statistical tie as preferred prime minister for the next three-year term.
Multiple surveys show the cost of living, with gasoline prices notably soaring since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is a key concern ahead of the election, in which voting is compulsory.
In a pre-election spree, the government announced an array of giveaways, including a fuel tax cut and a tax rebate for about half of the adult population.
But extreme weather events blamed on an overheating planet, and the government's response, have also unnerved many Australians.