Rudd unveils new Labour Ministry

Rudd named lawyer Stephen Smith, a one time adviser to former prime minister Paul Keating, as his new foreign minister, while Julia Gillard becomes the country's first woman Deputy Prime Minister.

Former trade union official Lindsay Tanner, from Labor's left wing, will be Finance Minister.

Rudd, 50, won power at Saturday's national election by promising generational change, ending 11 years of conservative rule under outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, 68.

Swan, 53, is a former academic who went to the same school as Rudd in country Queensland. He studied economics and arts and was an adviser to the Queensland state Labor government in the 1980s, before going on to run the Queensland branch of the party.

He has promised to maintain tight government spending and to maintain the independence of the central bank to set interest rates with the aim of keeping inflation low.

Rudd and his new ministers will officially take power in Australia when they are sworn in on Monday.

"The team I am putting forward is also a team of rejuvenation," Rudd told reporters. Gillard also takes on the key workplace relations portfolio. She will be in charge of overseeing Rudd's promise to scrap unpopular conservative government labour laws, as well as overseeing Rudd's education changes as education minister.

Malaysian-born Penny Wong becomes the first Asian-born minister, and as minister for climate change is in charge of Labor's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Wong, 39, arrived in Australia as a child in 1977 and was a lawyer and barrister before she entered parliament as a senator in 2002.

Former rock star Peter Garrett will become environment, heritage and arts minister, but loses his hold on climate change after slipping up on policy during the election campaign.

Rudd's election victory on Saturday threw Howard's Liberal Party into disarray, with dispirited MPs on Thursday choosing a new leader, but with Howard's anointed successor Peter Costello refusing to stand for the job.

The Liberal Party elected former Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, a doctor who ran Australian's key doctor's group the Australian Medical Association (AMA) before he entered Parliament, to replace Howard as leader.

Nelson's 45 votes to 42 victory over moderate Liberal Malcolm Turnbull represents a victory for conservatives within the Liberal Party.

Canberra, Thursday, Reuters