[Source: Reuters]

Voting began in Australia’s national election that polls show will likely favour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party over the conservative opposition, as worries about Donald Trump’s volatile policies overshadowed calls for change.

Albanese said in televised comments from Melbourne that his centre-left government had “built really strong foundations”. He has pledged to improve housing affordability and strengthen Australia’s universal healthcare system during his second term.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton also started his day in Melbourne, a key battleground, where he urged voters to choose his Liberal-National coalition “to get our country back on track”.

The election comes less than a week after Canada’s Liberal Party returned to power in a major political comeback, powered by a backlash against Trump’s tariffs and remarks on Canadian sovereignty.

Both of Australia’s major parties have focused on cost-of-living pressures but opinion polls show that global uncertainty driven by Trump’s stop-start tariffs rapidly became a top issue for voters during the campaign.

Labor has tried to cast ex-policeman Dutton, who has pledged to sharply reduce immigration and cut thousands of public service jobs, as a Trump-lite conservative, hoping some of Australians’ negative sentiment towards the U.S. president will rub off on the opposition leader.

Dutton has sought to distance himself from comparisons with Trump adviser Elon Musk’s agency-cutting fervor but fell behind Labor after the U.S. president placed tariffs on Australia. Dutton had led in opinion polls as recently as February.

Australia is a close U.S. security ally and generally runs a trade deficit with the United States. Even so, it was not spared Trump’s tariffs with a 10% duty imposed on Australian exports.

Polling booths in Australia – among the few democracies with mandatory voting – opened at 8 a.m., although a record 8 million out of 18 million eligible voters had already cast ballots before Saturday. Polls close at 6 p.m. (0800-1000 GMT depending on time zone).

Overseas, tens of thousands of Australians were expected to cast ballots at booths set up in 83 countries, Australia’s foreign affairs department said.

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