KEY POINTS:
CANBERRA - By tomorrow Australia should know the shape of the new generation of leaders that will govern the nation for the next decade.
Labor Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd will have selected his Cabinet from the large pool of talent that rode into Canberra on Saturday's landslide defeat
of John Howard's 11-year-old Coalition Government.
As Howard continues to clear his office and pack his belongings from The Lodge, the capital's prime ministerial residence, his former Liberal Party colleagues will be voting on a successor.
Howard will also be preparing for the dismantling of his WorkChoices industrial legislation, one of his proudest reforms but which his successors are already conceding Rudd has the mandate to dump.
Further changes will come in the Liberals' junior coalition partner, the Nationals, which will also be electing a new leader soon following the decision of Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile to step aside.
For Howard, the end of more than three decades in politics will be softened by his place in history as Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister, and a retirement package that will give him and wife Janette lifetime free air travel within Australia. Howard could enjoy an annual pension of up to A$330,000, or opt for a lump sum of A$1.5 million and a lower pension of A$165,000.
Other former ministers and MPs will also receive generous payouts, although those elected in 2004 will get less following tighter rules on MPs' super pushed through by former Labor leader Mark Latham.
Rudd's new Cabinet will bear the stamp of the authority he won by the scale of his victory, ensuring that his ministers will be entirely of his own choice and without direction from Labor factions.
He has given little away so far, apart from his pre-election inclusion of Deputy Prime Minister-elect Julia Gillard, and Treasurer-elect Wayne Swan.
The only other certainty is that Maxine McKew, the former ABC journalist who has almost certainly ousted Howard from the former Liberal blue-chip Sydney seat of Bennelong, will not be in the Rudd ministry.
Rudd told Southern Cross radio yesterday he admired gutsy Maxine. "[But] I do believe generally, as a general principle, that people coming into Parliament need a bit of parliamentary experience first."
McKew leads the count in Bennelong by 2431, with 79 per cent counted. The seat has about 7000 pre-poll and postal votes.
Rudd said he intended to have his ministry sworn in next Monday.
By then he will know who he will be up against in Parliament.
Tomorrow lunchtime former Treasurer Peter Costello - the one-time heir apparent who has decided not to contest the party leadership - will assemble Liberal MPs in Canberra to decide Howard's successor.
Three ambitious, driven candidates will contest the job: former Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, former Health Minister Tony Abbott, and former Defence Minister Brendan Nelson.
The party will need to select a leader who can command respect, discipline and unity to avoid the kind of internal blood-letting that has in the past riven the Liberals as they tried to rebuild after defeat.
The victor must be able to hold the party together through to the next election - which history suggests will see a second Labor term - if it is to have a chance to oust Labor six years hence.
The first big test for both sides will be Rudd's planned dismantling of WorkChoices.
Gillard repeated yesterday that the new Government would accept no amendments.
But the new Senate, in which the Greens appear likely to hold the balance of power, will not sit until June next year and until then it will continue to be dominated by the Coalition.
Yesterday senior Liberal senators said that Labor had previously ignored Liberal mandates to try to block Howard Government laws.
"We don't take kindly to Labor insisting they have a mandate and expecting us therefore to vote for their bills willy-nilly, Nick Minchin, Coalition Senate leader, told the Australian.
Retorted Rudd: "Are the Liberals still so far out of touch with working people in Australia that they think they have a mandate to retain WorkChoices?
"Is that the sort of arrogant statement we're hearing from the Liberals two or three days after an election?"
The gloves are off even before the new Government has been formed.