Labor leadership hopeful Bill Shorten says he has the campaigning skills needed to take the fight to Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
The senior MP took his election pitch to Melbourne on Saturday, telling Labor members that he had the qualities needed to win back the "one million" voters that shunned Labor during the recent election.
He said his biggest strength would be campaigning skills picked up during his days as a union leader.
"What Labor needs in the next three years is campaigning outside of parliament, as well as firepower in the parliament," he told reporters in Melbourne at a Labor event.
Mr Shorten's rival in the leadership ballot is Left faction MP Anthony Albanese, who is credited with being one of Labor's strongest parliamentary performers.
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Mr Shorten reiterated that he wouldn't be disparaging Mr Albanese "publicly or privately" during the ballot process.
"The old Labor tradition of MPs attacking each other - that ends," he said.
"It ended at the last election and it will certainly end on my watch if I get elected to be leader."
He said he hoped that, under his leadership, there would be less talk about "Messiahs, less about the `I', and more about the `us' or `we the team'".
"What I undertake to do if elected is I will do my level best working with the Labor caucus, working with the great union movement, working with the new constituencies which Labor needs to include," he said.
Mr Shorten pledged to make violence against women a national issue and to make dental care a higher priority.
He was flanked by former Victorian Labor premier Steve Bracks in Melbourne, who endorsed Mr Shorten for the party's leadership.
Mr Bracks is back in Australia after the Abbott government axed his appointment as Australia's consul-general in New York.
"New York's loss is my gain," Mr Shorten said.
