Defiant Australia PM says he can still win election

CANBERRA, Sep 10 (Reuters) Australian Prime Minister John Howard told nervous government lawmakers today he could still win a looming national election, despite yet another opinion poll pointing to comprehensive defeat for his conservative coalition.

Howard, who has been in power for 11 years, also reaffirmed that he would remain as Liberal Party leader, rejecting media speculation he would step down ahead of the election and hand power to his younger deputy, Treasurer Peter Costello.

''What I would say to my colleagues is that we can win this election,'' Howard told Australian radio today, as he faced more damaging speculation over his future after hosting a weekend summit of 21 Asia-Pacific leaders in Sydney.

The government has been struggling in the polls since December last year, when the centre-left Labor Party opposition elected Kevin Rudd to lead it into national elections.

A new opinion poll, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers on Monday, found government support had slipped two points since mid-August to 43 per cent, compared with Labor's 57 per cent backing.

If the result carried through to an election, the government would be soundly defeated. Howard, who must set a date by mid-November, is widely expected to call the vote within weeks.

The latest poll results prompted some commentators to say Howard should resign for the good of his party, and hand over to Costello to stem the government losses, but a defiant Howard said he intended to contest the election as leader.

Political analyst Nick Economou, from Melbourne's Monash University, said he expected Howard to stay, and to call the election for late October.

''If he waits any longer, he may give his party room time to rebel and fall apart,'' Economou said.

Howard said voters generally only changed governments in Australia if the government was seen as incompetent, or if the economy was being run badly. But his government was considered competent and the Australian economy was growing strongly.

''The polls are bad. They are very bad,'' he said. ''But if you look at history, the pre-conditions for change of government do not exist at present.'' But one outspoken government lawmaker, Senator Barnaby Joyce, from the junior government partner, the National Party, said the government clearly needed a new approach to woo voter support.

''It's like going to a dance,'' Joyce told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio today. ''There's only so many times you can go up to a girl and ask her for a dance.

''If she keeps on saying no and you keep on going back, you know, it's not too long after that that she starts getting annoyed or she calls the police.

''Now, we've obviously got to try a different approach than the one we've got, or we've got to make a public statement that we believe all the current polls are rubbish.'' REUTERS JT AS1050