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There was a fair bit of Bill Shorten in Angus Taylor as the shadow treasurer tied himself in knots this week.
Shorten, then the employment minister, infamously told David Speers in 2012 that he didn't know what the prime minister had said but he supported whatever it was that she had said.
Speers was astonished and viewers bewildered as Shorten made clear he would be seen to be standing alongside an embattled Julia Gillard.
Fast-forward 12 years and Taylor also found himself in all kinds of contortions of his own making.
He was sitting alongside the ABC's Lisa Millar on the set of News Breakfast, being asked about the killing of Australian woman Zomi Frankcom, who died on Monday after an Israeli air strike hit the aid vehicles she and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were travelling in.
War is tragic and so too was Frankcom's death, Taylor insisted.
When pressed further, he repeatedly said it was an "allegation" that an Israeli air strike had hit the aid vehicles.
Granted, foreign affairs isn't his portfolio, and maybe he had missed the fact that Israel had accepted responsibility for the deaths.
When presented with Israel's concession, Taylor repeated that war was tragic and added "Hamas started this off".
Like Shorten with Gillard, Taylor and his fellow Coalition MPs are finding themselves tied in knots. They appear tethered to the Israeli government, unable to express their own opinions on the situation.
They seem to be taking their lead from leader Peter Dutton, who this week offered no criticism of Israel in his response to the air strike.
Dutton and the Coalition have clearly decided they are backing the Israeli government. But this has left them seemingly unable to condemn actions that led to the death of an Australian aid worker.
Unluckily for Taylor, he was in the studio and had nowhere to hide — and was unlikely to have earned a well done, Angus from his leader.
Labor, in contrast, appears increasingly agitated by Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. Its leaders' responses to Frankcom's killing have ranged from "outrageous and unacceptable" to calls for "full accountability".
The government heard loudly and clearly the backlash it faced from its heartland after it appeared to be close to the Israeli government in the weeks and months after October 7.
Electorally, the Coalition's backing of the Israeli government may go some way to keeping those Labor voters in the ALP's tent.
But it's a different story on Labor's left flank, with the Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam announcing her plans to run in the safe Labor seat of Wills at the next election.
Labor must find seats if it wants to guarantee a majority government after the next election. Losing Wills to the Greens would only make it that much harder.
PM struggling to get clear air
What Albanese really wants is to be talking about cost-of-living support.
There are fewer than six weeks until the government hands down its next budget — potentially its last if Albanese calls an early election (unlikely) later this year.
Labor can see a path to holding majority government. To get there, it wants to be talking about how it nursed the economy back from a COVID recession. It wants to be highlighting the cost-of-living support it's given voters. And ideally, it hopes those voters are feeling like their wage growth is outstripping inflation after years of going backwards.
Albanese wanted to use a speech in Sydney on Thursday to hint that more bill relief for households and small businesses was coming. But the scenes in Gaza again cut into his desire for clear air to talk about the economy.
In recent weeks, Labor's failed bid to rush extraordinary immigration powers through the parliament has dogged the PM's efforts to talk about ANYTHING but THAT issue.
Immigration was again proving a thorn in the government's side this week when three Labor senators joined the criticism of its rushed efforts.
It will probably continue to flare as the May 14 budget approaches, even if the Coalition is all but certain to back Labor's push to give the immigration minister greater powers to deport people and ban others coming from certain countries.
The Senate committee investigating the legislation reports back, rather helpfully for the PM, one week before the budget. The High Court, which has been NOTHING but helpful to the government in recent months, will also hear a case later this month that could see even more people released from immigration detention.
Finding that clear air looks about as likely as getting a clear day in Delhi.
Don't count on a second referendum
It's been almost six months since the October 7 attacks.
That anniversary also marks another. A week to the day after Hamas' attack, voters resoundingly rejected the Voice referendum which, if successful, would have enshrined a First Nations advisory body in the constitution.
In the end it wasn't even close, with 60 per cent of voters against it and the ACT the only jurisdiction to vote Yes.
Figures this week released by the Australian Electoral Commission showed Yes campaign groups spent twice as much as No campaign groups.
Preliminary ABC analysis showed groups associated with Yes spent $60 million, while No groups spent around $25 million.
Disclosures only occur if they are above $15,200, and nothing stops someone from making multiple small donations to avoid disclosure. It means the full extent of disclosures might never be known.
Either way, the result showed that money wasn't everything when it came to winning. The disclosures also make clear who wasn't chipping in funds.
LoadingAlbanese committed his incoming government to a Voice referendum the night he won power.
In the days after, he had people wondering if he was planning another, creating an outer ministry portfolio for a republic.
Almost two years on, a second referendum looks more unlikely than ever.
"I made it very clear that I had one referendum in mind and that took place last year," he told reporters this week, when asked if his pick to be the next governor-general might be the country's last.
Many had wondered if Albanese would pick an Indigenous person to be Australia's first First Nations governor-general.
In the end he opted for businesswoman Sam Mostyn, who will be only the second woman to serve as the Crown's representative Down Under.
Mostyn is unlike many of the lawyers and military men who have preceded her. She has been a nation-wide trailblazer. She became the first woman to serve on the AFL Commission — an appointment three clubs tried to reject — a role that has earned her praise that she "speaks Victorian".
Just don't tell the Victorians that she changed her allegiances from St Kilda to Sydney — that might not go down so well.
Mostyn becomes King Charles' representative in July.