Early unofficial election results in Australia appear to hand a victory to Tony Abbott’s opposition Liberal-National Party, ending Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party’s six-year hold on government leadership.

An early Sky News exit poll, released before voting was to end Saturday, forecast the Liberal-Nationals winning 97 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, giving Abbott’s coalition 53 percent of the vote to Labor’s 47 percent.

The election comes just three months after Mr. Rudd ousted Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, in a party leadership challenge to try to help position Labor better for a national vote.

The national campaign has been dominated by concerns about the economy, asylum seekers and climate change.

Unemployment in Australia has been creeping upwards, and both parties have tried to convince voters that they can guarantee future economic prosperity.

Both candidates have also proposed tough immigration policies to discourage asylum seekers from sailing into Australian waters to claim shelter.

Mr. Abbott has promised that his government’s first action will be to repeal an unpopular tax on the country’s biggest polluters, which he blames for pushing up domestic power bills.

Voting in Australia is compulsory.  More than 14 million people are listed on electoral rolls, but authorities estimate about a half million 18- to 24-year-old Australians have never registered to vote, suggesting widespread apathy among young people about domestic politics. - VoA