CANBERRA, Friday 16 July 2010 (AFP) - Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard was Saturday expected to call a general election for late August that will be fought on the sensitive issues of boatpeople, the economy and global warming.

Gillard, 48, who came to power three weeks ago after Labor Party factions turned on her predecessor Kevin Rudd, ousting him after less than three years when his popularity dipped, will also seek to legitimise her leadership.

Australia's first woman prime minister, a centre-left former industrial lawyer, is expected to set either an August 21 or August 28 date for the poll, leaving five or six weeks to campaign, media said, citing Labor sources.

Gillard's office confirmed to AFP that the leader had an appointment to see governor-general Quentin Bryce at 10:30am (0030 GMT), all but confirming widespread speculation that a poll would be called Saturday.

Under Australia's electoral system, the prime minister decides the date for an election and must then get consent from the governor-general, Queen Elizabeth II's official representative, who will then dissolve parliament.

Gillard, who arrived in Canberra on her official jet early Saturday, was due to hold a press conference at midday, her office said.

The election is expected to be a hard-fought and close race after the Labor government fell from the dizzying popularity it enjoyed for its first two years in power.

The campaign is set to be a bloody one, as the self-confessed atheist pits herself against scrappy former student boxer Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal-National coalition, who played a key role in sinking Rudd's career.

The opposition would need to win an additional 17 seats, or cause a swing of 2.3 percent, to return to power, less than three years after their 11 years in rule were ended by Rudd's landslide election victory in November 2007.

Formerly his deputy, Gillard has enjoyed a strong opinion poll surge since succeeding Rudd, who in six months went from being one of the most popular prime ministers in Australian history to being ignominiously discarded.

The key factors that led to his political implosion were his decision to shelve a carbon emissions trading scheme after Abbott vowed to oppose it and a plan to impose a much-disputed 40 percent tax on mining profits.

After being sworn in on June 24, Gillard began tackling the problem issues that sank Rudd, quickly striking a deal with major miners which scrapped the mining super tax, replacing it with a far gentler one.

She has pledged to fight climate change and is widely expected to announce a new plan to put a price on carbon emissions during the electoral campaign, in a bid to clear the decks of political hot potatoes.

But her bid to neutralise the sensitive political issue of stemming the flow of asylum seekers to Australia by outsourcing their processing to East Timor backfired when legislators there dismissed the plan.

And Gillard has come under strong criticism from Abbott's conservative opposition and media over the brutal manner in which she rose to power.

Despite the rough sailing, a Nielsen and Galaxy opinion poll last week gave Labor a narrow but election-winning 52-48 percent lead over the opposition coalition, up from early June.

The election for members of the lower House of Representatives and half of the Senate is expected to be played out in key marginal seats in the populous eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.