The first official shots in the Australian federal election will be fired when Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott face each other in a debate about health at Canberra’s National Press Club on Tuesday.

It’s unlikely that many of us will sit through it all, or recall very much of it by the time of the election, which is why it is important for the participants to go shamelessly for news grabs. Since the polling suggests that Labor is considered strongest on health and weakest on economic management, Abbott’s best strategy is to make the point that hospitals cannot be fixed by incompetent economic managers.

Here is a modest group of suggestions for Tony Abbott’s speaking points.

  • There’s only one thing worse than Kevin Rudd’s lack of action and that’s when he goes into action. When Kevin Rudd finally decides to act on something smoke appears above rooftops.
  • Health experts from the Public Health Association say that Kevin Rudd’s proposed stingy 18 weeks parental leave scheme will not be long enough for women who choose to breastfeed their babies. They recommend our proposed six-month scheme for breastfeeding mothers and babies. Kevin Rudd claims health is important, but not important enough to give a mother and baby adequate time to breastfeed.
  • Every time you hear Kevin Rudd use the phrase ‘working families’ or [insert latest catchphrase], you know it’s because he’s been told to say it by his media minders. If you really want to know about Kevin Rudd you look at his actions and his body language and you realise that he is a fake.
  • The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal in NSW has warned that if Kevin Rudd’s carbon tax becomes a reality, electricity bills will jump by as much as 64 percent. Anyone who runs a household and gets a pay-rise, but then gets larger and larger bills will understand what will happen to our hospitals if Rudd is re-elected. Whatever funding increase Kevin Rudd claims he is going to make will be taken away by his great big new carbon tax on electricity and just about everything else that you need to buy when you run a hospital. The price rise in energy bills because of Rudd’s carbon tax will probably be enough to prevent the employment of a doctor in any moderate sized hospital.
  • Kevin calls his health policy a health revolution, but revolutions actually involve removing Governments, not making websites or holding ideas forums. So yes, I agree that we need a health revolution, and that means getting rid of this incompetent Prime Minister before he can do to our hospitals what he did to our ceilings. The only way that the general public can bring on a health revolution in the true sense of the meaning is to vote Liberal. Bring on the health revolution.
  • Kevin has told us that climate change is his number one priority – the biggest moral challenge we face. That’s why Rudd can’t afford to pay for a parental leave scheme that will allow for mothers to breastfeed their babies, and we can. That’s why if Rudd is re-elected, hospitals will face electricity bills that cancel out any proposed increased budget allocations. Rudd will claim here that health is his priority, but look at his actions and once again you’ll realise that Rudd is a fake.
  •  Kevin Rudd will be remembered as Australian politics’ answer to Seinfeld’s Newman – the postman who is always looking out for himself, but rarely delivers. The warning signs that this is an incompetent Government are being seen in the smoke signals rising above our suburbs every week. It is time for a true health revolution – time to kick this incompetent Government out.

To be continued…How to respond to Rudd’s memes