BILL Shorten last night made the most important decision and speech he is ever likely to make in his political career - until the one he makes one day when he runs for the leadership himself.
It was his Paul Keating moment - a Shakespearean tragedy to the end.
The faceless man who put the knife into Kevin Rudd admitted his mistake. And in the interests of the Labor Party - and he claims the nation - he did the unthinkable and abandoned Julia Gillard at the 11th hour.
His decision came at personal political cost - he defied his former AWU boss Bill Ludwig to do what he believed was right. He had little choice. Labor was on track for a catastrophic defeat.
Ronald Reagan said you can endure almost anything in politics but the one thing impossible to survive is ridicule.
Gillard endured more than most as Prime Minister. Most of it was unfair and some of it was vile. But she was also leading Labor over a cliff. Her leadership was doomed. It was always going to end the way it started on June 24, 2010: in blood and tears.
Now Rudd has got back what he has coveted for three years, he has to fix the bloody mess that began under his first attempt at being prime minister and ballooned into disaster under Gillard.
People will have serious doubt about his ability to do this. How can a man labelled by half his caucus as a psychopath cast himself as a new man?
How will Rudd reinvent himself?
How will he deal with those ministers who so bitterly attacked him last year? How he is going to fix the policy disasters that began under his first term as prime minister and persisted under Gillard?
The carbon tax, the mining tax and the border protection crisis will not vanish simply because he is back.
Then there is the issue of his public popularity. How fleeting will this affair with the "people" be?
At least we know the answer to one question. Rudd appears to be listening to the people and will put them out of their misery by calling an election for August.
Rudd has been working on a policy agenda for at least two years. Make no mistake, he has been planning this return since the day he was deposed.
The Daily Telegraph knows this of his policy agenda: He will seek to immediately drop the carbon price to a floating mechanism.
He has a plan to cut tax for small businesses to 25 per cent. He has toyed with the idea of sending the navy north, plans a major infrastructure program for Sydney, and already had a policy similar to Tony Abbott's about transforming northern Australia, with low tax rates and expansion of the food bowl to fuel a new economic boom for the country.
However, whatever happens from here until the polls, this will be remembered as one of the most shameful political periods of our time.
