Last week at CHOGM, Kevin Rudd's voice went MIA. Blame it on a cold. Or the many, many meetings he had in Perth. Either way, by his own admission, he ended up sounding like Hollywood husk pot Mae West.
Forever the faithful deputy, this week Wayne Swan has been losing his voice too. According to a spokesperson, there has been a ''lurgy'' going around the Treasurer's Office.
Swan's voice sounded dubious on Monday and ever dubiouser on Tuesday. By yesterday morning, Bill Shorten had to step in and introduce the mining tax legislation to parliament. Swan's honk just didn't cut it.
It wasn't an ideal time for the Treasurer's larynx to give way. With Julia Gillard putting the G into G20 over in Cannes, Swan is the acting Prime Minister.
That's right, Mum and Dad finally go away for the weekend, leaving you all alone. But you're too sick to throw a massive house party with all your mates. And all their mates and their good-looking cousins.
Apparently Swan has been chowing the Vicks VapoDrops, having lemon and honey and trying not to speak to recover his voice.
But come question time yesterday afternoon, silence was not an option for the acting PM. ''Voice permitting'', I'll answer questions, Swan rasped uncertainly, sounding more Tootsie than Mae.
From the get-go, Tony Abbott was keen to get stuck in over asylum-seekers. And those long-lost Migration Act amendments (remember that line about recording your vote for the sake of history?).
Swan spoke valiantly about trying to ''break the people smuggler's model''. But the only things that sounded broken were his vocal cords. As question time ticked on, Swan's answers got noticeably shorter. Joe Hockey asked about the estimated cost blow-out due to boat arrivals. Swan simply pointed him to the mid-year budget update and sat down.
Meanwhile, a decidedly Vicks-free Anthony Albanese was in rude vocal health.
So much so that the Transport Minister had enough hoarse power to keep yelling over the almighty din of the Opposition, while he re-baited Abbott and Hockey over their Qantas knowledge.
And keep on carrying on once his microphone had been turned off and Harry Jenkins was imploring him to zip it.
Albo's support act aside, we will never know if Swan's song would have lasted for the full 90 minutes, or whether he would have been forced to mime the rest of his answers.
At 2.44pm Abbott moved to suspend standing orders. ''They cannot stop the boats but, please, bring on the votes!'' Abbott flourished, clearly delighted with his ability to rhyme and argue at the same time.
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