KEY POINTS:
CANBERRA - Health Minister Tony Abbott thinks this election campaign is bizarre and surreal.
He described it as such yesterday and proved it by missing half of a nationally televised debate, insulting then apologising to a terminally ill asbestos campaigner and, finally, deferring an earlier centrepiece of Government policy.
When he did finally arrive for the debate with shadow health minister Nicola Roxon, Abbot told his audience that he did not want to dwell on the past - impressive as the Government's record was - but to look to the future.
Yet his closing entreaty was: "Judge this Government by its record and by its promises. Judge the sincerity of our promises by the effectiveness of our record."
Unfortunately for Prime Minister John Howard's hopes of winning a fifth successive term on November 24, health and the crisis facing Australia's public hospitals are among the highest of voters' priorities and are an area in which Labor leads in the polls.
It was Howard who was responsible for Abbott's embarrassment at the National Press Club. He commanded the Health Minister's attendance at a press conference in Melbourne earlier to announce a A$444 million ($534 million) plan to more than double the number of university medical graduates by 2012, ensure the nation has more GPs and nurses and to fund 800,000 nursing home visits to the aged and service veterans.
Alas for Abbott, Howard's timing meant he could not make it to Canberra in time for the debate, leaving the field open to Roxon, who was nonetheless prepared to help out her "discourteous" opponent.
"I can do an impersonation [of Abbott] if it helps. My office tells me it's quite good."
The empty seat at the Press Club rostrum was hardly the image the Government needed for the most important forum of the campaign for the crucial health debate. The public hospital system is in crisis, with overcrowded emergency wards that have led to tragic deaths in waiting rooms, hospitals crammed beyond capacity and overworked doctors and nurses.
There are problems with the Medicare universal healthcare system, deficiencies in aged and mental health care, shortages of staff, and a row brewing over attempts to force nurses on to workplace agreements that could reduce pay and conditions.
While receiving huge federal funding, health systems are primarily the responsibility of state Governments. This gave Abbott his key defence as all state Governments are Labor. "Why would you trust a federal Labor Government to fix the system when state Labor Governments created the problems in the first place?"
Both the Government and Labor have promised federal intervention if the states are unwilling or unable to tackle the crisis. But voters have more faith in Labor than the Government when it comes to health and hospitals. Nor was this the only headache for Abbott.
On Tuesday he described an attempt by terminally ill asbestos victim Bernie Banton - widely known and respected across the country - to present a petition seeking subsidies for a new drug as a stunt, saying that because a person was sick "it doesn't necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things". As outrage grew, Abbott rang Banton yesterday morning to apologise.
Later Abbott was forced to announce that a much-touted federal takeover of a hospital in a key Tasmanian marginal seat had been delayed, partly because of refusal of nurses to accept workplace agreements.
