PM Rudd kicks off televised forum

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has kicked off the second formal leaders' debate in Brisbane. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says it's time for "straight talking" about the future of Australia.

Mr Rudd was first to speak at the second leaders' event of the election campaign - a people's forum with 100 undecided voters at the Broncos Leagues Club in Brisbane.

The prime minister said he and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had different views about how to secure the nation's future.

"I don't doubt the sincerity of his commitment to the nation and to its future, but tonight ... it's time we had some absolutely straight talking about where I want to take this country in the future and where Mr Abbott wants to go for the future."

Mr Rudd listed Labor's priorities as a first class education system, a world class health system, an affordable high speed national broadband network and a clean energy future.

Mr Abbott agreed with the prime minister it was important to talk about the future.

"A very good guide to the future is what's happened in the recent past," he said, going on to discuss at Labor's record.

"Like Mr Rudd, I think we're a great people and a great country.

"I just don't think we can afford another three years like the last six."

A coalition government would make the economy stronger, scrap carbon tax, stop the boats and build modern roads, he said.

Mr Abbott hoped the debate would result in "a very engaging, candid talk".

"I'll talk a lot about deficit, sure. The fiscal deficit," he said.

"But in the end the biggest deficit we've got right now is the trust deficit."

Mr Rudd confronted Mr Abbott from the very first question, facing the opposition leader and demanding he level with the Australian people on what he was planning to cut from the federal budget.

"What people want to hear is, where are you going to cut?" Mr Rudd said.

"Which jobs, which services, which schools are going to be cut by you?"

He also challenged Mr Abbott over his record as health minister in the Howard coalition government, saying the opposition leader had been responsible for cutting $1 billion from hospitals.

Mr Abbott told Mr Rudd "to stop telling fibs".

"Please, if we're going to have a good discussion, let's try to base it on facts," he said.

"I did not cut $1 billion out of public hospital funding."

Mr Abbott said under his ministership hospital funding went from $8 billion a year to $10 billion a year.

He conceded there was "an adjustment to the forward estimates" but this involved slowing down the rate of funding increases, not an actual cut.

Mr Abbott threw a question back at Mr Rudd, asking him how he justified a $1.5 billion cut to health spending in last year's mid-year economic and fiscal outlook statement.

"This was your government putting on not a future cut but a cut in the current financial year," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Rudd said every state and territory government's health funding was adjusted in line with the latest census data.

He asked Mr Abbott whether he would commit to the existing $20 billion health funding agreement with the states and territories.

"Of course there will not be cuts to the hospitals," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott threw a question back at Mr Rudd, asking him how he justified a $1.5 billion cut to health spending in last year's mid-year economic and fiscal outlook statement.

"This was your government putting on not a future cut but a cut in the current financial year," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Rudd said every state and territory government's health funding was adjusted in line with the latest census data.

He asked Mr Abbott whether he would commit to the existing $20 billion health funding agreement with the states and territories.

"Of course there will not be cuts to the hospitals," Mr Abbott said.

A voter then raised Mr Abbott's wage-replacement paid parental leave scheme for working women.

Mr Abbott described it as a "watershed reform", but Mr Rudd said it was unfair and unaffordable.

Pushed to explain how the coalition would fund it, Mr Abbott said "about a half" of the $5.5 billion annual price tag would come from a 1.5 per cent levy on big business.

"So it will mean cuts for the other half, which is $2.5 billion worth of cuts to jobs, health and education," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Abbott denied this.

"My scheme will utilise the money that's been put aside for your scheme plus it will have further funding that comes to it from the company tax levy and from other schemes that will no longer need to continue," he said.

"That just doesn't add up," Mr Rudd responded.

"You don't get to $5.5 billion that way."

The exchange became more heated.

"The Parliamentary Budget Office disagrees with you," Mr Abbott said.

"I've just one final point ...," Mr Rudd interrupted.

"Will this guy ever shut up?" said Mr Abbott.

"We are having a discussion, mate," Mr Rudd said.

Turning to the standard of political debate in Australia, Mr Rudd acknowledged there had been a problem with the "lowness of parliamentary standards".

Mr Abbott admitted a couple of his own candidates had "not exactly covered themselves in glory so far in this campaign".

"But I am confident that people can grow, develop and mature," he said.

"If you're dissatisfied, join the party of your choice (and support change)."

Asked about Labor's proposed new bank levy, Mr Rudd said it was necessary to insure banks against another global financial crisis.

He said banks should not pass on the impost to customers.

"If you are running record profits ... they should swallow it," Mr Rudd said.

"Isn't it time the punters are left alone and you (the banks) engage in self-insurance?"

Mr Abbott said the levy was "just another tax" and seemed illogical given the global financial crisis was four and a half years ago.

However, there was a "serious budgetary position" to address.

"I'm not going to commit us not to doing this," Mr Abbott said.

Asked whether he would declare the coalition's position on the levy before the September 7 election, he said: "Yes of course we will."

Asked about Labor's proposed new bank levy, Mr Rudd said it was necessary to insure banks against another global financial crisis.

He said banks should not pass on the impost to customers.

"If you are running record profits ... they should swallow it," Mr Rudd said.

"Isn't it time the punters are left alone and you (the banks) engage in self-insurance?"

Mr Abbott said the levy was "just another tax" and seemed illogical given the global financial crisis was four and a half years ago.

However, there was a "serious budgetary position" to address.

"I'm not going to commit us not to doing this," Mr Abbott said.

Asked whether he would declare the coalition's position on the levy before the September 7 election, he said: "Yes of course we will."

Asked what his version of the Howard-era Work Choices industrial relations policy would be called, Mr Abbott revived his 2010 pledge that the hardline policy was "dead, buried and cremated".

"We learnt our lesson. We lost an election on it," he said.

Mr Abbott said he was one of two cabinet ministers who opposed Work Choices when it came up for debate in cabinet.

Mr Rudd countered with a story in the Australian Financial Review citing opposition industrial relations spokesman Eric Abetz.

Senator Abetz didn't give "any convincing reply" to the question of whether penalty rates and overtime would be protected under an Abbott government.

Mr Abbott said they would be protected, and the coalition would only change right of entry and greenfield site provisions.

"I think Senator Abetz better get into line with the policy," Mr Rudd quipped.

On the issue of border security, Mr Abbott said Labor's hardline policy to banish boat people to Papua New Guinea wasn't a bad initiative, but it hadn't been prosecuted with "vigour".

He noted that almost 3000 people had come by boat and only about 300 had been sent to PNG's Manus Island since the policy was announced on July 19.

The asylum seeker issue was a "tough problem" only "tough governments can deal with".

"A tough government did deal with it," Mr Abbott said, alluding to the Howard government.

"A soft government has proven incapable of dealing with it."

Mr Rudd said he had made some hard choices on asylum seekers.

The forum then turned to the environment, with Mr Abbott saying he regarded himself as a conservationist who was in favour of reducing greenhouse emissions.

"But that's not my exclusive environmental focus," he said.

The coalition's environmental policy involves a 15,000-strong "green army" to work with councils and farmers on Landcare projects.

Mr Rudd said it was "impossible" to be a conservationist without being fully committed to tackling climate change.

"You can't walk away from a price on carbon," he said.

Mr Abbott jumped in, saying Mr Rudd had abandoned his emissions trading scheme in early 2010.

The prime minister retorted the coalition had joined with the Greens to vote the scheme down twice in the Senate.

"That is just an extraordinary proposition," Mr Rudd said, as part of the audience applauded for the first time.

A building worker asked what the two leaders would do to revitalise the home building industry.

Mr Rudd said the key to confidence was low interest rates.

"If you've got interest rates out of control, frankly it really is a huge killer for the sector," he said.

Mr Abbott said the coalition would help by abolishing the carbon tax and reinstating the Australia Building and Construction Commission.

"I know this is not a total and full answer, but it's a beginning," he said.

The last question centred on gay marriage, with Mr Abbott reaffirming his conservative views on the issue.

"I think that we should not lightly change something which has been this way since time immemorial," he said.

Mr Rudd reminded the forum he had recently decided to support legalising same-sex marriage "to properly reflect what I think is the dignity belonging to all people".

Mr Rudd's closed by saying Mr Abbott would "slash and burn" like the Queensland Liberal National Party government under Premier Campbell Newman.

"When I talk about jobs, health and education becoming the victim of an incoming government which is not up front about where it wants to cut, here in Queensland we know a little bit of what this is like," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Abbott said Labor had six years to tell people how it would build for the future, and hadn't done so.

"If you had your chance and it didn't happen why should you be given yet another chance?"

Mr Abbott said the forum had been more lively than the previous election debate.

"It's 'People 1 - Journos nil' perhaps," he said.

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