Former Labor Opposition Leader Kim Beazley’s argument was that the pace of reform under Kevin Rudd had been slowed by the constipation of process. His speech was about the centralised control being exercised by a self-confessed anal prime minister. Beazley’s point of departure was the administrative style of Bob Hawke versus that of Kevin 24/7. And it was the Duracell Bunny that came off worse.

Some Liberal MPs this week pointed to Labor’s Crean leadership experience and say they just wanted to “end the agony”. Some who changed their support from the original safe option of Brendan Nelson as leader said they did so at the last minute because they realised a vote in his favour now would only be tested again in a month or two.

Malcolm Turnbull and ill-fated former Labor leader Mark Latham share certain characteristics: a touch of brilliance, strong performances in parliament and some fatal character flaws. Like Latham, history and the electorate may still judge that Turnbull came to the leadership of the Liberal Party too early.

For political fringe-dwellers like the Greens, there was no threat to Australia’s national security to warrant the 2005 anti-terrorism laws. The legislation was, they said, all a ruse to hide the government’s real agenda, ramming the new industrial relations laws through parliament during that first week in November 2005.

Both Costello and Hanson were third party figures who hijacked the national conversation early in the life of a new government. Costello did it by saying nothing; Hanson did it by saying things that had never been said before by federal politicians. Both became self-fulfilling sagas at around the same point in the cycle - after the new government had delivered its first budget.

The West Australian Premier has admitted for the first time his Government has not performed well, as internal party polling continues to show Labor at risk of losing tomorrow’s state election. Labor insiders said that the tactic of portraying the Government as the underdog had now become the reality.

Kevin Rudd’s narrative was akin to that of Karl Marx (the least funny of all of the Marx brothers). That’s not to say that Karl Marx’s exhortations to revolution bear any similarity to Rudd’s middle-of-the- road politics. Clearly, the two men have little in common politically. But they share a certain similarity in verbosity.

It’s all very well to talk up co-operative industrial relations but if one party, in this case Telstra, a very big and powerful employer with a massive amount of market share, does not want to co-operate, you won’t get where you want to go. It takes more than good intentions, gently delivered.