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Australia's election has become a war of bytes, with Labor challenger Kevin Rudd swooping on the Internet's high ground to build an army of young supporters and a Facebook fanclub on a promise of "fresh thinking".

The youthful Rudd, 50, an urbane Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, has embraced technology to a degree unseen in earlier Australian election contests, having to re-distribute Facebook "friends" after topping his 5,000-strong quota on the Web-based social network.

His screen-based soft-sell to the young has left veteran 68-year-old conservative Prime Minister John Howard scrambling to match tactics as he struggles in the polls ahead of the November 24 election.