Australian prime minister visits governor general in 1st step toward calling August elections

Australian PM poised to announce August elections

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited the country’s governor general Saturday, a procedural step toward calling a general election for late August.

Gillard — who grabbed power in a surprise ruling party coup three weeks ago — must defend her first-term government’s massive spending at the polls, expected to be held on Aug. 21 or Aug. 28.

Gillard was seen Saturday driving through the gates of the official residence of Governor-General Quentin Bryce, who is responsible for authorizing the election on the date the prime minister chooses. Gillard’s office would not comment before she makes an announcement at a press conference later Saturday.

Opinion polls point to her ruling Labor Party winning a second three-year term, but analysts expect a tight contest against a resurgent conservative opposition led by Tony Abbott.

Gillard was former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s deputy. Rudd became a Labor Party hero when he led it to a crushing election victory in November 2007 after 11 years in opposition.

He remained one of the most popular prime ministers in modern Australian history until he made a series of unpopular political moves earlier this year, including shelving a key pledge to make major industries pay for the carbon gas that they emit.

Abbott has led an attack on the government over its 52 billion Australian dollars ($45 billion) economic stimulus spending that helped Australia scrape through the global economic recession with a single quarter of mild economic contraction in late 2008.

Abbott told a conservative party meeting in Queensland, a key state to the outcome of the next election, the government has wasted money and the leadership change from Rudd to Gillard was a “seamless transition from incompetence to incompetence.”

The government under Rudd this year abandoned a AU$2.4 billion free home ceiling insulation program after four workmen died and scores of house fires were blamed on sloppy installation. A AU$16 billion program to build a new hall in every school has produced scores of examples of inflated construction contracts.

“The people of Queensland won’t be conned by a prime minister who is now running to the polls before she has established her credentials to lead our nation,” Abbott said.

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