Australian Labor says coming election to be tough

SYDNEY, Apr 29 (Reuters) Australia's opposition leader Kevin Rudd stamped his authority on the Labor Party at its weekend national policy conference but warned supporters it would be tough to translate poll leads into an election victory.

Rudd, 49, has pinned his election hopes on climate change and workplace policies, combined with a strong personal attack on conservative Prime Minister John Howard by painting him as man who is stuck in the past.

With an election due in the second half of 2007, Labor has a 17-point lead in the polls over the Liberal-led coalition government and Rudd holds a 10-point lead over Howard as preferred prime minister.

''This is going to be a really hard election for us,'' Rudd told a media conference on the final day of the Labor Party conference. ''Sixteen seats is a pretty big ask. This is tough stuff.'' Labor last won a national election in 1993 and lost power to Howard in 1996. But Labor believes Rudd, elected leader last December, has given the party a strong chance of winning power at elections likely to be called for October or November.

Howard, who turns 68 in July, hit back today, saying he still had plenty of energy and describing Rudd, 49, as too ''inexperienced'' to run the country.

''There's one thing I can offer the Australian people that Mr Rudd can't go within a bull's roar of offering them and that is the battle-hardened experience of taking difficult decisions both domestically and internationally,'' Howard told Australian television.

The Age newspaper said Rudd's plan was to paint Howard as the old, compared with the new of Rudd's Labor.

''If Mr Rudd can get the image of Mr Howard as a man of the past into the community's consciousness, it will be very dangerous for the PM,'' the paper's political editor Michelle Grattan wrote.

Labor's national conference endorsed Rudd's promises to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, commit Labor to cutting greenhouse emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by the year 2050, and introduce a national carbon-trading scheme.

Rudd today also promised low-interest loans of up to 8,260 dollars for householders to convert their homes to solar power and to pay for water tanks and irrigation to help conserve the nation's dwindling water supplies.

Yesterday, the party endorsed Rudd's plans to scrap individual work contracts and allow more enterprise-wide wage deals in a move widely applauded by unions but condemned by employers.

Rudd has also promised 12 months of unpaid leave for new parents, allowing at least one parent to remain at home for the first two years of a child's life.

But in return, Rudd will make it more difficult for workers to go on strike, ensuring secret ballots are held before industrial action and outlawing strikes in support of colleagues at another workplace.

REUTERS SKB KP1225