If this really was a fair-dinkum election....

Climate

Abbott: I think climate change is complete crap. But on the off-chance that you don't agree, I am prepared to invest in some human-led measures to reverse a situation that I believe has nothing to do with human behaviour. Capiche? Yeah, me neither. Oh and by the way, most of the ideas about direct action on climate change I nicked from Malcolm Turnbull.

Gillard: I don't think climate change is complete crap. But on the off-chance that you don't agree, I am prepared to abandon just about everything I've spent the last couple of years saying. I was prepared to abandon it some time ago - in fact, it was me who was leaning on Kevin to punt the ETS. Which he did. Which cooked his goose with you lot. Which made it my sad duty to relieve him of his responsibilities. It's a funny old game. So instead, I'll select 150 of you from the electoral roll and spend a year finding out what you think. After a year, when I've discovered that all 150 of you think that selecting 150 people to do my job for me is a stupid idea, with any luck this whole thing will have moved on. (In the meantime, I will announce some direct-action type measures. Mostly nicked from Malcolm Turnbull.)

Industrial relations

Gillard: To be honest, we've kind of won this battle. Not going to stop me banging on about it, though. I've got those Libs wired up like white rats to electrodes to this one; every time I even say "WorkChoices" they convulse so much you could probably throw in your laundry.

Abbott: Of course I don't like the status quo. But I'm not going to give Julia Gillard the satisfaction of yet another ding-dong about it. I'm just going to forget about it for three years. And so should you, please.

Family Values

Abbott: How outrageous. I am definitely not suggesting that Ms Gillard's lack of a traditional family in any way hampers her ability to address the issues confronting ordinary Australians. I don't believe that for a second. And neither does my wife Margie, with whom I have had the extraordinary privilege and challenge of raising three lovely girls in an era when school fees, cost of living, the rise of the internet and peer pressure create difficulties only a parent could understand. Also, we have a dog. Did I mention that?

Gillard: No, I didn't get married and have kids. And if I had, you wouldn't be seeing me standing here, would you? I mean, how many married-with-children ladies do you see running the country? By the way, I just love that I keep getting asked, in incredulous tones, whether I am actually going to move Tim into The Lodge if I win. Jesus wept. What else am I going to do? Hit up the BER fund to construct a Covered Outdoor De Facto Area in the back yard where he can hang out? You'll notice I am keeping my temper when I get asked about this every day. But hot damn, do I feel like clunking your skulls together.

Immigration and refugees

Gillard: Here's my problem. This area for me is full of things that I can't do. I can't keep up with Kevin's thing about a "big Australia", because it was as popular as plantar warts with you people. I can't let the boats keep coming - same reason. I can't admit that our policy changes in the last three years is what's causing the boats to come, because we've spent way too much time assuring you that that's not true. I can't freeze the processing of Afghans for too long, because we've spent so much time arguing that the reason for the boat arrivals is that conditions in the countries of origin are so terrible. I can't reopen the offshore processing centre in Nauru, because I teased the Howard government about it so much. I can't mount a full tough-on-border-protection routine, because I don't want to get stabbed to death at the next rubber-chicken night with the Left. What can I do? Assure you that I'm going to control population growth, while denying that it has anything to do either with immigration or the birth rate. Mumble something about East Timor, get my picture taken on a patrol boat and hope for the best. I mean well.

Abbott: Luckily for me, this area is full of things I can do. For instance, I can promise to turn boats around - just like Kevin Rudd did in 2007, before he got into office and was forced to recognise how tricky that is. Like him, I'll worry about that when I get there. I can issue clarion calls for immigration to be slashed, even though the targets I am announcing are pretty much what was projected to occur anyway under present government policy. And most magically of all, seeing as Julia is so jittery on this whole issue of population and immigration, I can get away with throwing my side of politics behind a population-explosion scare even though it's barely six years since Peter Costello was urging you to breed as if your lives depended on it.

Tax

Gillard: Okay, I'm only going to talk about this for a minute. Talk about a mess. First, we've already given away the squillions in income tax cuts that Wayne and Kevin signed up to in the 2007 election. Then Captain 24/7 decides he's going to get Ken Henry to undertake "root and branch tax reform". Terrific. Telling a Treasury Secretary to undertake root and branch tax reform is like telling your kid she can have a pony - it signifies the last moment of peace you're ever going to have in your life. So Ken comes back with his recommendations. Most of it too hard, or too expensive. So we go with the mining super profits tax, which seems safest, but of course by this stage Kevin couldn't sell arse-kicks for World Cup refs. Leaving you-know-who to fix it up. I've done my best, people. We've bought off the biggest of the miners. We're cutting company tax to 29 per cent by 2013. But that's my final offer.

Abbott: It's not as complicated as it sounds, really. I know I said in January that there would be no new taxes, but then a reasonably-priced parental leave scheme seemed too good an idea not to have, and a 1.7 per cent impost on big business is hardly a disaster compared with the benefit to be gained from paying mums and dads their full rate of pay for six months after a baby arrives. Of course the shadow cabinet didn't like it. Why do you think I didn't tell them? But it was a bit hard to argue that we'd keep prices down at Coles and Woolies while simultaneously raising taxes on Coles and Woolies, so here's what we've decided. First, mums and dads can still claim six months' pay but if dads want to claim it, they can only get the mum's rate of pay. And we're going to cut company tax by 1.5 per cent across the board, to 28.5 per cent. So big companies get a tax increase of 1.7 per cent but also a tax cut of 1.5 per cent. It's a bit messy. But at least I've put it in writing.

Fishing

Abbott: The Coalition will suspend Labor's marine protection process. What we will then do with it, I don't know. But if you like fishing, you at least have a small fighting chance that you might be able to fish more if we get elected. In the short term, this policy allows me to do some image repair of my own. Julia Gillard does it with superb lighting and a $15,000 Women's Weekly makeover; I do it by juxtaposing myself with a dead barramundi.

Gillard: I have nothing to say about fishing.

Annabel Crabb is ABC Online's chief political writer.