Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd is Australia's new prime minister after defeating John Howard's Liberal-National coalition in Saturday's parliamentary election.

Rudd, 50, swept to power promising to continue almost all the policies 68-year-old Howard's conservatives have espoused since they were first elected in 1996.

According to the Australian television ABC Howard has telephoned Rudd to concede defeat and will shortly make a concession speech at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney where he has celebrated four election victories between 1996 and 2004

Earlier today, the Australian Electoral Commission said that after 48.7 percent of the vote had been counted, Labor had won 68 of parliament's 150 seats to the coalition's 41. Independent candidates won 2 seats and 39 were doubtful, the commission stated on its Web site.

Julia Gillard, Labor's deputy leader, also stated in an interview for Australia's ABC television that it was all over for Howard. "On the numbers we're seeing tonight, Labor is going to form a government," she said.

John Howard, leader of the Liberal-led coalition in office since 1996, is the first prime minister to lose his seat since Stanley Bruce in 1929.

Australia is one of very few countries where voting is not optional, with those who don't show up at any one of 7,723 polling places liable to a fine or even imprisonment.

Howard’s popularity has decreased not so much because of his policies but because there is a yearning for change in a country grown prosperous under his rule.

There is a sense he has been tardy in responding to climate change and selfish in wanting to hold on to power beyond his welcome.

Some analysts are calling this the world's first general election where climate change is a top order issue

Howard's achievements are manifest in one of the rich world's fastest-growing economies. Unemployment is at a 33-year low, the last time strikes were less frequent was 1913, and the government is free from debt.

On the other side of the ledger is Howard's decision to commit troops to Iraq and six interest rate rises since his last election victory in 2004.

Kevin Rudd has matched the government's promises to cut taxes and extend Australia's 16 years of economic growth and has also pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and to pull Australian troops out of Iraq.