Profiles

Profile: Kevin Rudd

Rudd has galvanised his supporters with the belief they can finally oust Howard, after four election defeats and 11 years in the political wilderness.

Rudd appeared an unlikely saviour for the centre-left party - a former diplomat and fluent Mandarin speaker seen in Canberra as a foreign policy guru.

While the 50-year-old likes to describe himself as a "farm boy from Queensland", he was seen as too intellectual and lacking the common touch Australians prefer in their political leaders when first appointed.

Rudd's fresh-faced appearance meant he was referred to as "Harry Potter" by some within his own party, but he rated himself "a very determined bastard" ready to take on Australia's second-longest serving prime minister.

His confidence and slick election campaign have resulted in a strong opinion poll lead over Howard's conservative government.

Social justice

Rudd endured a tough childhood, forced to temporarily sleep in a car aged 11 when his family was evicted from their Queensland farm following his father's death in a road accident.

He said that experience shaped the views on social justice that led him to run for federal parliament, where he was elected in 1998 on his second attempt.

Before arriving in Canberra, he was a senior bureaucrat for the state Labor government in Queensland and had a lengthy career as a diplomat, including postings to Stockholm and Beijing.

Married with three children, his wife Therese is a millionaire businesswoman in her own right - a fact that many say plays well with female voters.

Younger version

Rudd describes himself as a "fiscal conservative" and speaks openly about his Christian faith.

He has frustrated the government by refusing to be distracted on issues such as race relations and civil liberties.

He has differed from Howard's platform on only a few key issues seen as vote winners, including withdrawing Australian combat troops from Iraq by mid-2008 and ditching controversial  government workplace reforms.

He has also emphasised his potential for generational change, campaigning on issues such as global warming and broadband internet access, where the 68-year-old Howard often appears uncomfortable.

Rudd has remained unflustered in the face of a series of attacks on his credibility, including questions about his wife's business  and his handling of sex abuse claims at a juvenile prison when he was a Queensland bureaucrat.

Details of a drunken trip Rudd made to a New York strip club in 2003 were also leaked to the media, although it backfired when the bookish leader's opinion polls ratings went up in a country that puts pride in "bloke-ish" antics.

But he is frequently accused of being overly sensitive to media criticism and his office tightly controls what his party officials say in public.

In October, Rudd upstaged Howard at a meeting of Asia Pacific leaders in Sydney by conversing in Mandarin with China's President Hu Jintao.

Rudd has achieved a realistic chance of unseating Howard by portraying himself as a younger, more up-to-date version of his rival, which analysts say could swing voters in favour of the Labor party.