Australian election campaign begins with focus on immigration; Labor holds a slight lead: poll

Australia’s election campaigning kicks off

SYDNEY — Australia’s prime minister and her conservative opponent kicked off campaigning Sunday by touching on the key issue of immigration, a day after Julia Gillard called elections a mere three weeks after becoming premier.

Gillard, the nation’s first female prime minister, on Saturday scheduled elections for Aug. 21 amid strong support for her new leadership. She became prime minister in June after ousting her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, in a sudden Labor Party coup.

Opinion polls have shown Labor holds a slight lead, but the race is expected to be a close one against the conservative opposition coalition led by Tony Abbott.

A Galaxy poll published in News Limited newspapers Sunday showed Labor holds a 52-48 percent lead over the opposition. The survey of 800 voters was taken Friday and no margin of error was given.

Both Gillard and Abbott have divergent positions on key issues including climate change, record-high public debt and strategies to stop a surge of asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat.

Gillard has attempted to fix the asylum seeker issue by asking tiny neighbor East Timor to host a U.N.-endorsed regional refugee processing hub.

On Sunday, the Welsh-born Gillard told a crowd in the Queensland state capital of Brisbane she is against the idea of a “big Australia,” and believes there needs to be a focus on sustainable population growth that puts less stress on resources. But she was quick to note her comments were not meant to be taken as anti-immigration.

“I am not saying we should cease to be a nation that embraces diversity or welcomes newcomers,” she said. “As a proud migrant myself I could never believe such a thing. But what I am saying is that growth should make life better for Australian families — not make things harder.”

Abbott, meanwhile, spent Sunday morning pushing his Liberal Party’s plans to introduce temporary protection visas that would allow the government to send refugees back to their home countries if conditions improved there — a plan condemned by Labor.

“That is very, very important because people think that if they get here and are assessed as a refugee they’ll have a permanent residency, they’ll have a new life in Australia,” Abbott told Sky News. “Obviously that is a very, very seductive product for the people smugglers to sell.”

Gillard and Abbott, who were both at one point thought too left-wing and too right-wing — respectively — to appeal to the mainstream, are both facing the uphill challenge of appealing to critical middle-of-the-road voters.

Gillard, an atheist with a common law partner, has been accused of being unfit for leadership because she has never had children.

On Sunday, she spent the morning posing for pictures with babies in a Brisbane park.

Abbott, married with three daughters and a staunch Roman Catholic social conservative, was recently criticized by Gillard for warning Australia’s young women against having pre-marital sex. Gillard said he should mind his own business.

Gillard served as deputy to Rudd, who led the party to a landslide victory in 2007 and was one of the nation’s most popular leaders.

But the public’s opinion toward him soured after he made several politically unpopular moves earlier this year, including failing to deliver on a promise to force major industries to pay for the carbon gas they emit. Gillard has not announced a new Labor policy on reducing Australia’s carbon gas emissions, among the world’s highest per capita.

Abbott has proposed giving major polluters taxpayer-funded incentives to reduce pollution. No penalties would be imposed for failure to reduce emissions.

Australia weathered the global financial crisis better than most developed countries, credited in large part to a 52 billion Australian dollar ($45 billion) stimulus package. Abbott has attacked the stimulus, and accused the government of wasting money.

Gillard has promised to return Australia to a surplus budget in three years.