Defiant PM says Tony Abbott's paid parental leave scheme is a poll-loser to rival John Hewson's 1993 Fightback! TRUE BELIEVER: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd addresses union members on infrastructure at Unions WA, Perth. KEVIN Rudd has told Australia not to write him off yet, claiming he can mount a Paul Keating-style comeback in the last week of the campaign - and win. "Of course I can," the Prime Minister said. Any student of political history will tell you that a party with a three-point gap going into the last 10 days of a campaign is able to recover that gap. It's happened a number of times. Mr Rudd's confidence came as his campaign was again dogged by gaffes and poor polling results yesterday. A girl waiting for the behind-schedule Prime Minister at a press conference in Western Australia fainted as he spoke, with aides later forced to explain he didn't pause while she received first aid because he was unaware of the incident going on just metres from him. Her mother, Helen Anderson, yesterday said her daughter had recovered and was "thrilled" that Mr Rudd intended to call her to check on her welfare. During the same Perth press conference, Mr Rudd failed to remember the name of Ray King, the PM Kevin begins to show sweat beads under pressure during a press conf on the fundings issues in sweltering heat in Perth. Liberal candidate in the western Sydney seat of McMahon who Labor has tried to smear with corruption links. And all this as the latest Newspoll predicted Labor would lose a number of marginal seats around NSW. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Rudd pointed to the 1993 election when Mr Keating was trailing John Hewson with a week to go. He, or rather Mr Hewson, turned what was thought to be certain defeat for Labor into a remarkable victory in the final days of the campaign. The polls suggest Rudd's ambitions are fanciful. Even delusional. But he tries to show no sign of a man under pressure as he prepares for Labor's official campaign launch tomorrow in Brisbane ahead of polling day next Saturday. "Keating in '93 came from behind," he said. We have one objective and that is to prevail in this election. PM Kevin Rudd with Kris Doherty and his Kevin07 T-shirt after he addresses union members on infrastructure in Perth. Feet up, shoes off, dressed in an Australian Institute of Sport tracksuit, the PM was speaking as he rested in the private cabin of his plane on the way to Perth on Thursday night - leaving in his jet stream a controversy brewing over Labor's bungled attack on the Coalition's budget savings figures. "I would not have returned to the leadership unless I believed that we could put a strong case to the Australian people for re-election ... warts and all," he said. And I think the Australian people respect you if you are upfront about that. You can't try and pretend that mistakes haven't been made. He was talking of the baggage that has accumulated after three years of internal Labor chaos. PM Kevin Rudd in front of a historical photo of workers as he addresses union members on infrastructure in Perth. But in a somewhat bizarre comparison, he asked whether people should judge Labor as harshly for its failures as it should have for John Howard taking the nation to war in Iraq on a lie about weapons of mass destruction. I don't believe in gilding the lily with people. There have been some very difficult periods ... all I'd be gilding the lily with people about, how that compares about John Howard taking Australia into war in Iraq on the basis of a lie, or presiding over the worst political scandal in Australia's history, or about imposing on Australia a set of industrial relations laws which robbed people of their penalty rates and overtime. And frankly, if you ask people what they would regard to be the greater or lesser of those concerns I think they would reach certain conclusions. Mr Rudd and his chief strategist Bruce Hawker believe that the Paid Parental Scheme will become to Tony Abbott what the GST was for Hewson in 1993. "The paid parental scheme, $75,000 to millionaires and billionaires - I don't know of a swinging voter in that category," he said. Yet every swinging voter is asked to pay for it. It says everything about Mr Abbott's judgment and a lot about his priorities. Mr Rudd claimed that it is only now, in the final days, that people will start focusing on the election. Asked what the last four weeks had been about, he joked that it was a requirement of the constitution. "In most elections people don't start focusing until about now, to be honest," Mr Rudd said. (We will be) maintaining the argument, which is that we are building the country's future and Abbott has a single script which is massive cuts. We build, they cut. When people look more to the detail of what that means to them they will become progressively more concerned about voting for that outcome. I think people are genuinely anxious about the whole question of the aggressive impact of his cuts, of throwing the economy into recession.