Even before the starter's gun had been fired on the election, the "underdog" Bill Shorten was ready.
Ready to lead Labor for the first time in an election campaign, ready to frame the poll as a referendum on issues like jobs and schools, and ready to talk up Labor as the party that will "put people first".
"Labor's certainly ready for this election," Mr Shorten said at its first policy launch, about paid parental leave.
"I acknowledge we start this election as the underdog but this election will be a matter of choices for the Australian people."
The repeated message was about positive plans for the future, on jobs, schools, Medicare, renewable energy and a fair taxation system.
"We are in this to win it," he told reporters in Melbourne.
"We are definitely ready, I and my team."
Mr Shorten is not as keen for the election to be a choice between himself and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has consistently led in the popularity stakes even as the opinion polls have the two major parties locked at 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis.
"Let's be clear: this election isn't about Mr Turnbull or myself. It's about the Australian people," Mr Shorten said when asked if he was concerned his personal unpopularity was a drag on the Labor vote.
"I think Australians are hungry for a positive vision of the future."
This is an election about issues, not personalities, he said, and Mr Turnbull's personal wealth "is no business of mine".
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Yet Mr Shorten and Labor are keen to send a message that they are on the side of working mums and battlers while Mr Turnbull and the Liberals provide tax cuts to people who earn $1 million a year, and major corporations.
After the days of leadership swaps between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, Mr Shorten is also drawing a contrast between Labor's united team and Mr Turnbull's "definitely not united" side.
Mr Shorten picked Mother's Day to announce Labor will protect the paid parental leave scheme it introduced, but only had families spokeswoman Jenny Macklin by his side after rain forced the abandonment of a plan to be among families running in the Mother's Day Classic.
There was no cute family photo like Mr Turnbull's visit to a Canberra playground with his grandson.
The shot Labor will want Australian voters to remember on day one of the eight-week campaign is of Mr Shorten returning to Beaconsfield in Tasmania.
It was there that Mr Shorten, then secretary of the Australian Workers Union, came to prominence as the public face of the Beaconsfield mine disaster.
When two trapped miners finally emerged, the Daily Telegraph headline was "Bill for PM".
Mr Shorten will be hoping voters see him that way a decade on.
