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.

When historians look back on what has been a week of unprecedented political havoc across the country, perhaps one of the most significant developments will have gone contemporaneously unremarked: the final morphing of Brendan Nelson into Simon Crean. Crean paid the ultimate price. It’s odds-on Nelson will as well.

Successive Labor governments have ignored the union movement’s power inside the party. The example of Simon Crean is no great encouragement to further action. But it is a problem that is not going to go away. Party members in New South Wales are emboldened by the victory they have achieved over the Iemma Government.

It has been reported that Peter Costello, the former treasurer, is waiting to be drafted to the leadership to avoid a tussle between current Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson and Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull.