Lawyer, surfer set to be Australia foreign minister

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A third-generation Labor Party politician and lawyer who likes to surf off Sydney's beaches is likely to become Australia's new foreign minister after Labor won power in weekend national elections.

Centre-left Labor swept away nearly 12 years of conservative rule on Saturday, and leader Kevin Rudd was set to break party tradition by picking his own cabinet rather than allow Labor lawmakers to decide who wins promotions.

McClelland, 49, served as shadow foreign minister for the past year, and is widely expected to take the portfolio in government, although Rudd is non-committal and significantly distanced himself from McClelland during the campaign.

"My intention is for the parliamentary party to meet this Thursday and to have the ministry sworn in soon after that," is all Rudd would say about his new front bench on Sunday.

He has previously committed to keep former schoolmate Wayne Swan in the treasury portfolio and his deputy Julia Gillard in charge of the key workplace relations portfolio.

McClelland entered parliament in 1996 after a successful law career, and he is considered one of Labor's best legal minds. A long-term party member, he comes from the powerful right-wing faction in New South Wales state.

If he becomes foreign minister, McClelland has said he wants to foster closer sport and cultural links between Australia and China, to match the growing bilateral trade and investment ties.

In an interview with Reuters in September, McClelland also said he wanted to lead a campaign to have the death penalty abolished throughout Southeast Asia.

One Australian was executed for drug smuggling in Singapore in December 2005, another remains on death row in Vietnam, and six face possible execution in Indonesia for drug smuggling.

"We have a general aspiration of trying to develop through Southeast Asia the abolition of capital punishment," McClelland told Reuters in September. "It is not fanciful. it has been done in Latin America."

His comments on the death penalty briefly became a key election issue, with the conservative government accusing him of being soft on terrorism by wanting to abolish the death penalty for people convicted of terrorist offences in Indonesia.

While both sides of Australian politics oppose the death penalty, Rudd publicly distanced himself from McClelland's comments and said Australia would not seek clemency for two Indonesians on death row for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.

McClelland was born into Labor politics. His father and grandfather were both Labor politicians, and both were part of significant constitutional rows when their respective governments were sacked.

His grandfather was in a Labor government in the New South Wales state in the 1930s, and his father was a minister in the government of Gough Whitlam from 1972 to 1975. The two governments are the only two in Australian history to have been dismissed by the governor-general, the Australian representative of Britain's monarch.

"So touch wood," McClelland said.

(Editing by Roger Crabb)