Anthony Albanese shrugs off unemployment gaffe as Scott Morrison blasts 'staggering' slip up

Mr Albanese travelled to the Labor-held Tasmanian seat of Lyons on Tuesday, unveiling a plan to bring back over-the-phone mental health services in regional areas.

The Opposition Leader was looking to recover from a difficult first day on the campaign trail, when he was unable to name the unemployment rate, despite job security being a centrepiece of Labor's election pitch.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Coalition colleagues have used the gaffe as ammunition to attack Mr Albanese's economic credentials.

Mr Morrison said leaders wouldn't get every figure right, but the fact Mr Albanese was so wrong with his estimate about the unemployment rate was cause for alarm.

"His assumption that unemployment had a 5 in front of it - that is what I found more staggering," Mr Morrison said during a press conference in western Sydney.

"If he'd said 4.3 [per cent] or 4.2 or 3.8, or something like that. Yeah, it was a memory slip. But what this showed was ... he had no idea what has happened with Australia's economic recovery."

Mr Albanese has attempted to draw a distinction with Mr Morrison by "owning up" to the mistake.

He insisted politicians, including the Prime Minister, would fail numbers quizzes from "time to time".

"I quoted, the Ramones on day one of the campaign. Here is a Taylor Swift comment for you, my theory is: 'Shake it off'," he said.

"It shouldn't have happened. It did ... [but] there are no consequences for real people as a result for what I said."

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