Anthony Albanese has COVID-19. So what?
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As campaign spokesman Jason Clare put it, "the boss has got the bug. So you got me."
Turns out, that was not a bad thing for Labor.
Labor's erstwhile spokesperson on housing, who in the first days of the campaign stood up in Sydney talking to an empty room with just a camera, was - with the full traveling media pack - confident, succinct, amusing and on target.
"This is an epic fail when it comes to foreign policy," he described the Solomons pact with China.
"This government is a binfire on this," he doubled down later on contradictory statements from government ministers.
And then just brutal, "What happened instead? The Foreign Minister went to a business function and some bloke called Zed got sent there."
Jason Clare is a guy who can drop words like "Aussies", "mate" and "Burkey" and still sound scholarly.
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OK, OK! The guy more than held his own after campaign watchers and participants drew their breath over the leader's positive test.
So much so, before the press conference was over, a journalist asked, "Are you not the Labor leader that many will be looking for?"
Cue laughter.
"The short is, Albanese is the leader this country desperately needs," Mr Clare had to say.
"It is Albo. It is time to give Albo a go. They have a choice here, between honest Albo and smirking Scott. Australians will make that choice very clear. Australians will vote for hope, change, a better future."
Albanese could not have said it better himself.
Both leaders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Mr Albanese, do have problems with a significant part of electorate. The undecideds out there are a group big enough to swing the election.
And obviously, Mr Albanese had a horror start to his campaign which he largely recovered from thanks to the showing at the first leaders' forum.
But the Labor leader's benching over COVID is not necessarily a bad thing. If he does not get too sick, he can recharge at home and come out later in the campaign refreshed.
Mr Clare has proved himself more than competent doing the job he was already doing. Now there's Senator Wong and Clare O'Neil, who are keen to debate their opposites Marise Payne and Richard Colbeck at the National Press Club but have been declined.
Expect to see more of Mr Marles, shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers and shadow finance minister, Katy Gallagher. There will be no de facto campaign leader.
"He'll be back at the halfway mark," Mr Clare pointed out.
The government is seeing a weakness in Mr Marles over historical "advocating" for China, when those on the government's side, including Mr Morrison, have welcomed Chinese investment in the region.
The iPad interviews are underway. Asked if a week out of the campaign was going to help or hinder him, Mr Albanese could not answer. Pretty much because he can't.
"No one wants to get COVID, so I'll treat that question as that," Mr Albanese told the ABC from his sickbed. "No one wants to get COVID. I did not want to get COVID and I'll be back out there campaigning."
"I'll be back for the second half and this is a long campaign. And if I was going to get COVID it is better to have got it now than the last three weeks of the campaign."