Australian election knife-edge  

Polling shows that today’s Australian election is a neck-and-neck contest between Labor and the centre-right Liberal Party. Even if Tony Abbott, the Liberal leader, doesn’t quite make it to become Australia’s next Prime Minister, this has been a striking turnabout for him and his party. Some experts attribute this revival of Ozzie centre right fortunes to the modernising strategy Abbott and his tight-knit clique of advisers have followed since he took over as leader. “The break-through came when we made it clear we no longer believed in our traditional agenda” explained one Canberra insider yesterday. “By ditching that old “right wing” agenda that used to focus on immigration, lower taxes and smaller government, we’ve stormed ahead with folk who’d never vote for us...