Bill Shorten is adopting a nothing-to-see-here approach to apparent Labor disunity on asylum-seeker policy, but the writing is already on a Facebook wall.
The wall of Labor's candidate for Herbert, Cathy O'Toole, that is.
Back in February, Ms O'Toole posted a photo of herself protesting outside the office of Liberal MP Ewen Jones as she and others called for a more humane refugee policy.
"Doing the right thing is important as opposed to doing what is popular," she wrote in another post.
It made for an uncomfortable few moments when the Labor leader and his candidate fronted the media on day two of the federal election campaign.
Ms O'Toole batted away question after question insisting she was behind Labor's asylum seeker policy "100 per cent".
But the Amnesty International member was reluctant to say she supported boat turnbacks.
"I support the Labor policy which says we will not be allowing people to put their lives at risk, to be exploited and to come to this country when we can make an alternative arrangement for them," Ms O'Toole told reporters.
Her reluctance came a day after Labor's candidate for the Greens seat of Melbourne spoke out against boat turnbacks.
Mr Shorten was forced to deflect claims of internal disunity, insisting the opposition was at one with the coalition.
"Labor or Liberal, regardless of who wins after July 2, we will not reintroduce onshore processing for people who come by boat from Indonesia," he said.
Earlier Immigration Minister Peter Dutton demanded Mr Shorten discipline frontbenchers in "open defiance" of the policy.
"If he can't govern them in opposition how on earth is he going to govern them in government?" Mr Dutton said.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said Labor was made up of good people wanting to do the right thing, but the party was united in its anti-people-smuggling resolve.
The former immigration minister said anybody who'd served in the portfolio would understand the devastation of pulling bodies from seas, or getting phone calls about sinking boats in the middle of the night.
