Conservative poised to become PM as Australia votes

Millions of Australians have voted in a national election that is expected to see the Labor Party ousted from government after six years in power.

Polls opened on Saturday at 8:00am Australian Eastern Standard Time  (2200 GMT) with about 14.7 million electors taking  part in a mandatory ballot across the huge country.

The polls were set to close 10 hours later, with western states voting another two hours beyond that because of the time zones.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott seemed on track to guide his Liberal Party-led coalition to a victory in Saturday's election. Opinion polls have given the party a commanding lead over the ruling Labor Party.

A Newspoll published in The Australian on Saturday put his Liberal-National Coalition ahead 54 to 46 percent on a two-party basis, the same as a Nielson poll in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

Abbott, a volunteer lifeguard, is often depicted by cartoonists wearing nothing but the red-and-yellow cap of an Australian lifeguard and Speedos, known in Australia as "budgie smugglers'' - a reference to the budgerigar, a small Australian parrot.

"I'm down here at Freshie Surf Club and you'll be pleased to see ... I'm in a suit, not in the budgie smugglers,'' Abbott told Nine Network television.

"I sort of wish I was out there on the waves ... but Australia has a democratic duty to do today.''

Newspoll has correctly picked the result of all 56 Australian federal and state elections since 1985.

If its prediction is correct, it represents a four percentage point swing since the last election in 2010.

The latest predictions have Labor losing anything from 14 to 32 seats in the 150-member lower House of Representatives with the Conservatives set to claim a comfortable majority of more than 90 seats.

The poll was based on a random national telephone survey of 2,511 voters over three days this week and had a 2 percentage point margin of error.

Kevin Rudd, the incumbent Prime Minister was once widely beloved by the public. Now, his party is facing the prospect of an end to its six years in power amid deep voter frustration over years of party instability and bickering, and widespread hatred of a carbon tax on major polluters.

Abbott has vowed to scrap the carbon tax.

Meanwhile, speculation has already begun on who will replace Rudd if he leads Labor to the predicted landslide loss.

Labor stalwart Bob Hawke, who was prime minister from 1983-1991, said the party had underestimated opposition leader Tony Abbott in the lead-up to the election.

"Tony has historically been capable of some awful gaffes, as people will tell you," Hawke told Sky News Australia.

"But he's shown considerable discipline in his campaign."

Hawke tipped Bill Shorten, a former Labor powerbroker who helped initially topple Rudd and then Julia Gillard, his successor, to take the Labor leadership.

Al Jazeera and wire services