By James Grubel
BRISBANE (Reuters) - Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott pledged tougher prison sentences for people-smugglers on Sunday as he formally launched his campaign to unseat the Labour government in the August 21 election.
Abbott also promised a united team if he wins office -- pointing to dissension within Labour since Prime Minister Julia Gillard replaced her predecessor in a party coup in June.
Illegal immigration is shaping up as a decisive issue in what is likely to be a close election, with opinion polls showing that voters in marginal seats are concerned that Canberra is not doing enough to turn back boatloads of asylum seekers.
Surveys show Abbott's conservatives have a real chance of defeating Gillard, with the government's campaign hurt by tensions over the removal of former prime minister Kevin Rudd.
The latest Reuters Poll Trend shows Australia is facing an increasing risk of the first hung parliament since World War Two. No Australian government since 1931 has lost after a single term.
In his main new policy in the campaign speech, Abbott said people-smugglers who repeatedly offended would go to jail for 10 years or more -- sentences more akin to rape and manslaughter.
"We are determined to send a strong message to people smugglers that their cruel and callous trade in human cargo must stop," Abbott told an auditorium packed with cheering Liberal-National Party coalition supporters, under the banner "Stand up for Australia, stand up for real action."
Gillard dismissed suggestions that the government had failed to take action against people smuggling. "We've got mandatory jail sentences in the current legislation. We have had a crackdown," she told Australian television.
Border protection laws introduced this year set a penalty of up to 20 years' jail and up to 10 years for assisting smugglers.
CLIMATE POLICY
Abbott also promised to set up a carbon-emissions reduction fund in his first three months to combat climate change. He opposes the government's plan for a carbon-trading scheme.
If he wins, Abbott said Australia would meet targets to cut greenhouse emissions by five percent by 2020, but through tree planting and other moves -- not through a carbon tax or trading.
"What we will never do, though, is damage our economy with futile environmental gestures," he said.
The Greens, who are likely to hold the balance of power in the upper house Senate after the election, on Sunday proposed a long-term 100 percent renewable energy target, and said they would push for A$5 billion ($4.5 billion) in green loans to promote big clean energy projects.
While that policy is unlikely to be implemented, it points to a starting point for post-election discussion on climate policy. The Greens want a carbon tax and deep emissions cuts by 2020.
Abbott also promised to kill off Labor's proposed 30 percent mining tax on the first day of a conservative government, produce a national economic blueprint within his first month, and to outline tax reforms within his first 12 months.
Abbott told supporters that the mining industry under his government could "again do what it does best: creating wealth and employing hundreds of thousands of Australians without the threat of an investment-killing, jobs-destroying great big new tax."
The broader mining industry is campaigning against the government's tax on iron ore and coal operations, although global heavyweights BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata agreed to the tax.
Abbott's border protection plan includes new talks with the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru on reopening a refugee processing centre under a policy which mirrors the plan that helped the conservatives win the 2001 and 2004 elections.
A crackdown on people smugglers could upset neighbouring Indonesia and produce a new standoff like last year, when asylum seekers refused to leave a boat moored at an Indonesian port.
Labour has raised the idea of opening a regional asylum seeker processing centre in East Timor to Australia's north.
($1=A$1.11)
(Additional reporting by Michael Perry in Sydney)
