THEY called it a “Ruddslide”. Australia’s Labor leader Kevin Rudd was last night celebrating an overwhelming election victory that swept John Howard from power after 11 years and out of the parliamentary seat that he had held since 1974.

Rudd, 50, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, a staunch republican and a fiscal conservative who had campaigned for lower taxes and strict control of public spending, became his country’s 26th prime minister after a huge 6.1% swing against the ruling Liberal-National coalition.

Among his most popular policies were a promise to withdraw Australia’s 800 troops from Iraq and a pledge to sign the Kyoto treaty on climate change. He also indicated that he would back a plebiscite on the future of the Queen as head of state.

Howard, 68, paid a heavy political and personal price for high interest rates, support of the Iraq war and uncertainty about when he would step down if elected for a fifth term. He lost his cherished seat of Bennelong, in north Sydney, to Maxine McKew, a former television journalist – the first time a sitting prime minister had been ejected by his constituents for 78 years.

The Labor party headquarters in Brisbane erupted with chants of “Goodbye Johnny, goodbye” as one Liberal seat after another fell to Rudd’s “Kevin ’07” campaign. It was a mark of his success that Labor had snatched power from a Liberal government only twice since the second world war.

By 11pm Labor had secured 83 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, compared with the coalition’s 58, and was heading towards wins in at least three others, giving it a substantial mandate to pursue new policies on education, health, foreign affairs and industrial relations.

Rudd, whose somewhat nerdy demeanour compels cartoonists to liken him to Tintin and Harry Potter, claimed victory at 11.10pm local time.

He was greeted at Labor’s HQ with his wife Therese and young family to raucous cheers and the thump of rock music. He quiet-ened the crowd with his first two words as prime minister, “Okay guys”, and declared his determination to “write a new page in our nation’s history . . . to make this great country even greater”.

Rudd vowed to lead a government of consensus with a common vision, “to put aside old battles” between business and unions, growth and climate change, the federal and state governments. He said the “great Australian ‘fair-go’ had a future and not just a past”.

His victory was largely attributed to his ability to convince Australians that he is an economic conservative who will rein in public spending, unlike his profligate Labor predecessors. He persuaded the electorate that he would continue rather than undo Howard’s economic achievements: Little distinguishes Rudd from Howard in terms of economic management. “Kevin Rudd is basically John Howard without the nasty bits,” said Peter Hartcher, political editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

The critical turning point in the campaign came when Rudd declined to match Howard dollar for dollar on spending promises to the Australian people: “I pride myself on being an economic conservative, committed to budget surpluses,” he said last week.

Yet there are distinct policy differences: Rudd has come under pressure from the powerful Australian unions to scrap controversial industrial relations reforms that made it easier for employers to sack workers.

The Australian business community now fears a return to rigid labour markets – especially as 70% of Rudd’s front bench are former union bosses.

Some commentators have questioned Rudd’s relative lack of political experience – he has served only nine years in the Australian parliament – but his service as a diplomat is seen as an important asset.

“Rudd comes to the prime ministership with more expertise on foreign affairs and strategic issues than any predecessor since the second world war and arguably . . . than any predecessor ever,” said Hugh White of the Australian National University.

Rudd, the youngest of four children, was raised in the little town of Eumundi, in the Queensland sugar cane belt, and knows what it means to be deprived.

When he was 11 the family suffered a tragedy. His father, a tenant farmer in southeastern Queensland, died in a car crash. The young Kevin was shunted between schools as his mother tried to bring up the family alone.

The Rudds were evicted from their farm. “I think my father’s death was difficult at an early age,” Rudd recalled.

“But being evicted actually was the harder bit because we were share farmers, we didn’t own the property so we buried dad one day and got tossed off the property virtually the next, with nowhere to go and no assets.”

They were left to rely on the charity of relatives and neighbours – a time that Rudd says shaped his socialist leanings: “My mother had been a nurse during the war and then in the early 1970s she had to retrain as a nurse to bring us up, so she has semi-hero status in my life, having done all of that.”

Rudd rose through the ranks of the civil service, becoming a senior diplomat in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and went on to run a business consulting firm in China, where he honed his language skills.

As an opposition politician prone to accusations of dullness, his standing grew after he was reported to have visited a New York lap-dancing club in 2003 and claimed he was too drunk to remember what happened. The disclosure that he nibbled his own ear wax – he was caught in the act on YouTube – failed to tarnish his image as a polished political operator.

Rudd even agreed to appear on a popular youth television programme where he was asked for whom he would “go gay” and whether he thought he could beat his opponent in a bar brawl. He agreed he could beat Howard in a brawl; but when he answered that his wife was the only person in his life, the compere replied, “Is she a man?”

His election victory was the culmination of a smooth and consistent campaign, helped by the serial gaffes of Howard’s accident-prone party. The last straw for Howard came last week when Liberal activists were caught distributing fake Labor pamphlets purporting to support Muslim extremists and the release of the Bali bombers.

As euphoria gripped the Labor camp, the scale of Howard’s humiliation became clear early today. The Liberal-National party coalition had suffered “annihilation” at the hands of Labor’s deft campaigners, according to commentators.

In conceding defeat, Howard told supporters that he had left the nation “stronger, prouder and more positive than it had been 11½ years ago”. He acknowledged that the party would have to choose a new leader. “I believe the future of our party lies very much with Peter Costello,” Howard said, handing the mantle directly to his long-standing Treasury minister.

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