Labor frontbenchers stepped up across Australia as leader Anthony Albanese completed his first day in isolation after contracting COVID-19.
Campaign spokesman Jason Clare says Mr Albanese's diagnosis provides an opportunity for Labor to showcase its united team ahead of polling day.
Mr Clare says there will not be a de facto opposition leader during the course of Mr Albanese's isolation, even though Labor has deputy Richard Marles.
"We're not a one-man band. We're a strong united team," Mr Clare told reporters in Sydney.
"I see this as an opportunity ... because not only have we got a better plan, we've got a better team."
Mr Clare joined Labor's finance spokeswoman Katy Gallagher in Australia's most marginal seat of Macquarie in Sydney's far west.
The seat, held by Labor's Susan Templeman on a 0.2 per cent margin, covers the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury and has been devastated by recent floods.
Ms Templeman told AAP the flood recovery has been overlooked because of the election campaign, with farmers losing acres of their productive land from the most recent disaster.
"People feel ignored and abandoned," she said.
"Primary producers have a very long way ahead of them and the way the (disaster) funding is structured just doesn't get them where they need to go."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison campaigned in southern Queensland, unveiling a $428 million upgrade to four defence force air bases in Ipswich alongside his defence minister.
Construction at RAAF bases Amberley, Richmond, Pearce and HMAS Albatross would create 600 new jobs, with the upgrades to be completed by 2024.
He also announced a re-elected coalition government would establish 14 new Veteran Wellbeing Centres, at a cost of $70 million.
Mr Morrison has been seeking to talk up the coalition's national security credentials and argue better economic management means more can be spent on defence.
Foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong, who was in Perth where Mr Albanese was due to be on Friday before having to go into COVID isolation, said the coalition had dropped the national security ball when it comes to the Solomon Islands.
"Warning after warning, signpost after signpost, when it comes to the Solomon Islands, has not been properly acted upon," she said.
"It means that the risks Australians face have increased and the challenges we face have just got greater."
Mr Morrison said the handling of the situation followed "very careful advice".
"I can't go into any more details about that, but I can assure you these are complex issues and they have to be dealt with in a very calibrated way," he said.
"We don't engage in the same way (China) do in the region. The suggestion the Australian government in any way contributed to this arrangement being put in place is absolutely false."
Defence Minister Peter Dutton used the announcement to attack Mr Marles and Labor's attitude towards China.
"We do know there's a period of uncertainty and we do know our country needs to stand up for our values, we need to invest in the defences of our country and Richard Marles has essentially abandoned that principle."
Mr Marles called Mr Dutton's remarks and suggestions Labor is weak on China "an outrageous slur".
"We all get the threat that China represents to Australia. There is no disagreement about that," he told the Nine Network.
"For Peter to suggest there is it's just an outrageous slur and actually undermines the national unity there is around the fact that we understand there's a threat from China."
© AAP 2022