Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls for elections on May 21

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison called federal elections for May 21 on Sunday, launching a come-from-behind battle to stay in power after three years rocked by floods, bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Morrison's conservative government is struggling to woo Australia's 17 million voters, lagging behind the opposition Labour party in a string of opinion polls despite presiding over a rebounding economy with a 13-year-low jobless rate of four per cent.

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"It's a choice between a strong future and an uncertain one. It's a choice between a government you know and a Labor opposition that you don't," Morrison told a news conference in Canberra.

Polls show much of the electorate distrusts the 53-year-old leader, who fashions himself as a typical Australian family man and is unafraid of advertising his Pentecostal Christian faith.

Leader of the opposition Labour Party Anthony Albanese speaks to the media in Sydney, on Sunday. AP

Aiming to end nine years of Liberal-National Party rule is 59-year-old Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese.

The opposition leader started the six-week race to the poll pushing a message of optimism before highlighting bruising attacks on Morrison's character emanating from his own government.

"He's running in an election campaign, whereby his deputy prime minister has said he's a hypocrite and a liar," Albanese told media in Sydney.

"We can and we must do better. The pandemic has given us the opportunity to imagine a better future and Labor has the policies and plans to shape that future."

A recent Newspoll survey showed Labor leading the coalition 54 per cent to 46 per cent on a two-party basis.

Morrison and Albanese were in a statistical tie as preferred prime minister for the next three-year term.

Agence France-Presse