Australians were choosing between two relatively unknown, but divergent personalities in a tight election race today, pitting the country's first female prime minister against her socially conservative challenger just two months after she took power.
Welsh-born Julia Gillard, a 48-year-old former lawyer with a common law hairdresser spouse, came to power in an internal June 24 coup in her Labour Party during the first term of her predecessor, and almost immediately called an election to confirm her mandate.
She goes against Tony Abbott, a London-born married 52-year-old former Roman Catholic seminarian with three daughters who barely gained the endorsement eight months ago of his own Liberal Party, which has led Australia for most of the last 60 years.
A Newspoll survey published today predicted a neck-and-neck race, with the one-term Labour Party expected to take 50.2 % of the vote compared with the Liberal Party-led coalition's 49.8 %.
Newspoll has predicted the correct result in all 48 federal and state elections it has surveyed since 1985.
Australians have not dumped a first-term government since 1931 when a Labour administration paid the ultimate price for the Great Depression.
However, this year's election is coloured by Ms Gillard's surprise seizure of the helm of her party from former prime minister Kevin Rudd after a series of poor opinion polls.
Mr Abbott, whose socially conservative views alienate many women voters but whose supporters say he can better empathise with Australian families, said Ms Gillard's government did not deserve a second chance because it dumped the elected prime minister.
"Elections are an opportunity for the people to pass judgment on the competence or otherwise of the government," Mr Abbott said. "Just as I expect the current government to be judged."
Ms Gillard, who moved to Adelaide as a child, told reporters in Sydney, where voters were turning towards the conservatives, that Labour could lose its entire eight-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives where parties form governments. Labour won 83 seats at the last election in 2007.
"What we know from the opinion polls is this, that there is a real risk that Mr Abbott could be prime minister on Sunday," she said yesterday.
At a voting station in a high school in Adelaide's northern suburbs, Wayne Crompton, 64, said he was supporting the local girl.
"I don't trust the other guy," he said after voting. "They're all politicians and they all tell lies, but I would think personally, I vote Labour through and through."
He said Labour would best address the problems of low water supplies to the state of South Australia and the more national problem of a rising surge of illegal immigrants arriving by boat.
Issues vary across the large and diverse country, but asylum seekers, health care and climate change are hot topics nationwide.
Another issue brought to the forefront today was the presence of the Australian military in Afghanistan, where two soldiers were killed the day before. The government and opposition both support Australia's military commitment to Afghanistan.
South Australia is expected to vote largely Labour but those seats may not be enough to offset predicted coalition wins in Queensland and Western Australia.
Both candidates ended their five-week election campaigns yesterday by warning voters their opponent's untested leadership threatened the prosperity of Australia's economy.
Australia scraped through the global financial crisis without falling into recession, although Mr Abbott has argued that the government spent too much to keep a sluggish economy growing.
He has long been seen as a gaffe-prone fitness enthusiast who is often lampooned in the media over the many images of him clad in Lycra cycling and swimming wear.
But for Jodie Waterhouse, a 31-year-old housewife and long-time Liberal supporter, it is Mr Abbott's work-life balance that won her vote.
"I do care about paid maternity leave, education and the environment," said the mother of a toddler and five-month-old twins. "But I suppose I vote because I like the person and the balance they deliver, and I think Tony Abbott is delivering that as much as any politician can.
"It sounds funny, I know, but I like that he's into exercise, I like the personal balance."