Australia:The Labor Party swept to power with a landslide win in Australia's federal election on Saturday.
Though counting is not yet complete, conservative prime minister John Howard is very likely to have lost his Sydney seat of Bennelong.
In his victory speech, Labor leader Kevin Rudd said he would govern for all Australians. "Today Australia has looked to the future. Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward," he said.
"I will never take their sacred trust for granted . . . I will always govern in the national interest."
With 78 per cent of votes counted by last night, it is likely that the 6.3 per cent swing to Labor will see them gain 28 seats, including those of five ministers in the Liberal-National coalition as well as Mr Howard's.
Winning a predicted 88 seats will give Labor a majority of 26 in the 150-seat parliament.
After congratulating Mr Rudd, Mr Howard said he took "full responsibility" for the Liberal campaign. "I therefore accept full responsibility for the coalition's defeat in this election campaign."
In a press conference yesterday, where he was noticeably more austere than he had been while giving his victory speech the night before, Mr Rudd said he had spoken to and been congratulated by US president George Bush, British prime minister Gordon Brown and Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Earlier this year Mr Rudd said if elected he would withdraw Australian combat troops from Iraq. He stressed yesterday that Canberra's relationship with Washington was crucial despite policy differences. "I emphasised to President Bush the centrality of the US alliance in our approach to future foreign policy," he said.
Mr Rudd has pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at the Bali summit on climate change next month. "Climate change therefore was a key focus of my conversations with the British prime minister and with President Yudhoyono," he said. "That will come to a focus at the Bali conference and I look forward very much to attending that."
The election swing to Labor was strongest in Mr Rudd's home state of Queensland and in New South Wales. These states were always going to be critical to Labor's chances of winning power, but the extent of the swing took many by surprise. National Party minister De-Anne Kelly lost her Queensland seat in a massive 13.5 per cent swing.
The coalition ran a gaffe-strewn and extremely negative campaign which sought to demonise Labor as a party of "anti-business former union officials". In contrast, Labor ran its mostly positive campaign on the theme of new leadership and fresh ideas. While many of Labor's policies were similar to those of the coalition, key differences included plans to get rid of WorkChoices, the coalition's hated industrial relations policy, and to ratify Kyoto.
Labor is now in power not only federally, but also in every Australian state and territory government. The highest-ranking Liberal left with any power is the mayor of the Queensland capital, Brisbane.
The Liberal Party is not only out of power, it is also leaderless. Not only has Mr Howard likely lost his seat, but his deputy, Peter Costello, said he is not now interested in leading the party. They had gone to the electorate in a two-for-one deal, with Mr Howard due to hand over to Mr Costello in 2009 if they won.
The only previous Australian prime minister to lose his seat was Stanley Bruce of the Nationalist Party - a precursor to the Liberal Party - in 1929. Mr Bruce lost his seat over the issue of industrial relations and a failed anti-union scare campaign. Labor won in a landslide that year too.