On Tuesday, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott face each other in a debate about health at the National Press Club in Canberra. In Part One, we discussed talking points – in Part Deux we offer some suggestions of how to respond to the predictable blatherings of Kevin Rudd:  

The claim: Kevin Rudd will claim that Abbott stripped $1 billion from the health budget when Abbott was Health Minister. There is ample evidence Abbott’s ministers have been lying about this, not least because Abbott was not Health Minister at the time.  

Comeback: “As we speak, thousands of rooves in Australian houses are electrified, any number of them could be set alight at any moment, thousands of people who heard that Australia is a soft touch for immigration are heading this way, and Kevin Rudd is still trawling through the budget papers of 2003 and twisting the truth about me.”  

Abbott should accuse Rudd and his Ministers of lying and read out Rudd’s Ministerial Code of Conduct. Abbott could also put up the budget papers Rudd is referring to at his website and recommend viewers to go there to judge for themselves how Rudd is twisting the truth. 

The claim: Rudd is likely to argue that there is no danger of a repeat of the home insulation fiasco in hospitals because the federal government will not be running hospitals.

Comeback: “You weren’t in charge of the home insulation scheme either and more than 100 houses caught fire. You weren’t in charge of the schools building programs, but you wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. These disasters are clear warnings of what would happen if you managed our hospitals.”

The claim: Rudd may attempt to repeat the meme that Abbott is harsh and erratic.

Comeback: “This is a bit rich coming from a man who supported Mark Latham, despite the fact he broke a taxi driver’s arm – and from a man who made an air hostess cry, who allowed Belinda Neal stay on despite telling a pregnant woman that her thoughts would turn her baby into a demon. It’s just like how you pretend to be a supporter of women’s rights but then go to strip clubs and ALP functions with strippers. Then you offer stingy parental leave that does not allow a woman enough time to breastfeed. I’d rather be whatever name you want to call me than a fake any day.”

The claim: The Liberal Party don’t even have a health policy, how can voters take you seriously?

Comeback: “You announced your broken promise that you would take over the health system in August 2007 – only two months before the election. Once again, by looking at your actions rather than listening to your words we can tell that you are a fake. We will articulate our policies to the electorate well before you did. Maybe if you had a little patience, you would not have burnt more than a hundred homes or wasted millions of dollars on your schools building program.”