Labor has made the fear of a Medicare sell-off its dominant message since its official campaign launch last Sunday, when Mr Shorten told voters the government was "privatising Medicare" and seeking to "tear down" the system.
The Labor campaign is based on the assumption that the payment system is the same as Medicare itself, but doctors have rejected that argument.
The new President of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Michael Gannon, says reform to the Medicare payment system is overdue.
"Certainly there are elements of ALP policy in this campaign that the AMA is highly supportive of. We've asked the Government to unravel the (rebate) freeze, the Labor Party has promised to do that. We welcome the ALP's commitments on public hospital funding, we welcome their comments on pathology and radiology but referring the payment system to the Productivity Commission to see how we can make a 30 year-old system work better, that's not privatising Medicare."
But Opposition Leader Bill Shorten doesn't agree.
"Well I don't accept that characterisation at all. People are entitled to their opinion about the importance of keeping the payments system in Government hands. Labor absolutely is committed to keeping the payments system in Government hands."
And the Labor leader has also been forced to defend his party's border security policy.
The federal government says Labor's policy would encourage people smugglers to take up their trade again.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the Labor Party has announced that they are going to abolish temporary protection visas.
He says this will mean that the 30,000 asylum seekers who came by boat under the Labor Government, who are in Australia now, will get permanent residence.
"This will send an absolutely unequivocal signal to the people smugglers that under a Labor Government, anyone who manages to get to Australia on a boat will be able to stay here permanently. It will be used aggressively as a marketing tool by people smugglers and it absolutely demonstrates the hollowness of Bill Shorten's claim that he shares the same border protection policies as us."
Mr Shorten says Labor has the same policy to deter people smugglers as the Turnbull government and the Prime Minister shouldn't say otherwise.
"We have made it perfectly clear - I had the courage to take this issue to my Labor Party in the July national conference last year. I led my party and I said we will turn back boats. We will deter people smugglers. The Liberals know this and they should be ashamed of themselves, giving the business model of people smugglers a bit of jolt in the arm by playing tawdry partisan politics. This matter should be above politics. This matter is about the safety human life, it is about turning boats back. We will do what is required to deter the people smugglers, full stop."
Meanwhile, Labor frontbencher Senator Penny Wong insists straight politicians pushing for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage don't understand what it's like to be the target of hate.
Mr Turnbull has made it clear that if his government is re-elected on Saturday week, he hopes to hold a plebiscite on same-sex marriage before the end of the year.
Senator Wong, who is in a same-sex relationship and has a young family, says she's worried about the hate speech that could be unleashed if there's a plebiscite.
"Many commentators on this subject don't understand that for gay and lesbian Australians, 'hate speech' is not abstract. It's real. It's part of our everyday life. My Twitter feed already foretells the inevitable nature of an anti-equality campaign, and it does it in 140 characters or less. I would make the point here that one of the consistent themes is bad spelling."
Meanwhile, federal Senate hopeful Derryn Hinch says he's is open to using parliamentary privilege to name convicted sex offenders.
The outspoken broadcaster, who appears likely to win a Victorian upper house seat on July 2, was jailed in 2014 after breaching a suppression order relating to Melbourne woman Jill Meagher's killer.
Asked if he'd name offenders if elected to parliament, Mr Hinch says he will if he has to.
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