When those numbers went into freefall, so did Rudd.

When Gillard came in, already compromised by the way she took the job, she not only had to fight off the constant undermining by Rudd and his supporters. She also faced Abbott, whose primary tactic as Opposition Leader was to render the country ungovernable by giving the government nothing on anything and doing all he could to foul the operation of a hung Parliament.

Always looking for a fight

Abbott's problem, or one of them, was that he never made the jump from opposition knuckleman to prime ministerial statesman. He was always looking for a fight, rather than focusing on the challenges of running a country, and not just for those who voted for him.

In that vein, there was much speculation this week as to whether Abbott would have accepted Labor's fairly benign changes to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement for the sake of getting the agreement into force on time, or whether he would have kept his foot on Bill Shorten's throat and taken the issue down to the wire, because he could.

Joe Hockey's farewell speech this week confirmed that Labor had blindsided the Abbott government on tax reform. Andrew Meares

Among the reasons offered in recent weeks as to why Abbott fell, there has been little recognition of Shorten's contribution, which was significant if only because of the contrast Labor provided under Shorten and the extra effort he forced the government to expend.

When Shorten took over as Labor leader after the 2013 election, he promised a different style. In an early speech, he promised that while he would hold the government to account, he would not, as Abbott did, just say no to everything.


Having said that, there were some issues on which he refused to yield.

"Mr Abbott confuses himself with myself," he said in October 2013, when Abbott presented the Parliament with legislation to unravel the price on carbon.

Predicted Labor would fold

Abbott had confidently and frequently predicted that Labor would fold on carbon, just as the newly exiled Coalition in 2008 folded on WorkChoices because, he said, Shorten was an unprincipled populist motivated primarily by survival.

To the government's shock, Labor, after some internal debate, stood its ground on the policy principle of pricing carbon and forced Abbott to deal with the Senate independents. It was an early decision that wrong-footed the government, challenged its sense of total authority, but won Labor little praise from the Greens or other ideologues who had so often accused the ALP of selling out its principles.

Similarly, there was an expectation within government, business and the broader political establishment that because Labor had so run down the budget when in power, Abbott and Hockey would have carte blanche in cutting spending and lifting taxes.

The 2014 budget, with its broken promises and rushed policy decisions, many of which failed to take into account unintended consequences, will only grow in notoriety as time wears on.

While initial reaction to the budget labelled it a stinker politically, it took some time for the full extent to sink in. When Shorten gave his address-in-reply two days after the budget was delivered, there was genuine surprise at the number of measures Labor decided it would block.


Entitled to feel shocked

At the time, they totalled $18 billion over the forward estimates. Shorten said the voters were entitled to feel shocked at the ­brutality of the budget and "angry at a Prime Minister who pretended to be on their side".

Voters "are up for hard decisions" but "pay them respect, sit down, talk to them, listen to them".

The consequence of Labor's opposition to so many measures was to force the government back to the drawing board to design them properly and minimise the losers.

Because of the nous of the likes of Scott Morrison, Mathias Cormann and, more recently Christian Porter, policies on pensions and welfare cuts have been reworked into fairer packages that still, over time, deliver significant structural savings. Sussan Ley is in the midst of trying to find savings in Medicare after the hamfisted attempt to bung a $7 co-payment on everyone, rich or penniless, who visited a doctor.

Had Labor done as expected and waived everything through in 2014 out of some sense of expectation and shame, the public would be unhappy but Abbott would most probably still be Prime Minister.

Shorten rather testily pointed out this week that it was only because Labor stood against most of the original cuts to Family Tax Benefits that Morrison and Porter had devised a less-harsh package but which delivers huge savings over time.

"Remember, and some of you have breathlessly reported in the past that the Abbott government is going to deliver these family benefit changes," he said.


"This government only backed off on family payments because of the strength of the Labor Party."

Blind-sided the government

Joe Hockey's farewell speech this week confirmed that Labor had blind-sided the Abbott government on tax reform when it stuck its neck out in April and proposed changes to superannuation tax concessions and negative gearing. Hockey left Parliament endorsing both and vindicated reports that he had been kneecapped by Abbott because playing politics was more important that thoughtful policy development.

Voters do not despise Shorten like they disliked Abbott. They find him underwhelming.

Maybe that's why he has received next to no credit for Labor's role in Abbott's demise. The voters have flocked to the new guy who, has also lifted holus-bolus Labor's futuristic policy approach.

With the recent era of poor prime minsters perhaps now passed, the job of Opposition Leader has reverted to the miserable, thankless, hard slog it has often been.

For Shorten, it has been a bit like peeing yourself in a dark suit. You get a warm feeling but no one else notices.

Phillip Coorey is The Australian Financial Review's chief political correspondent