Until yesterday, the last time a Labor National Secretary fronted the Canberra Press Gallery to explain the whys and hows of the election result — from the winner’s perspective — was in 1993. Bob Hogg did the talking, and back then he was more famous than his partner Maxine McKew.

Since then we’ve had three Liberal federal directors: Andrew Robb (1996), Lynton Crosby (1998 and 2001) and Brian Loughnane (2004). But yesterday it was Labor’s turn again to dictate history. So how did Tim Gartrell go?

After an election, everything changes. There’s a general belief that the result was “correct”, opinion polls show increased support for the winner, and indeed more people claim to have voted for them than actually did. No matter the view up until 6pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on election-day, the loser’s campaign becomes hopeless, the winner’s without blemish.

When there’s a change of government, the shift is even more dramatic. It is preposterous to believe a bunch of people who enjoyed a wonderful connection with “middle Australia” a year ago are suddenly without a clue, but believe it we do. It just fits, as does the tale about a campaign team who performed brilliantly in 2004 but suddenly, mysteriously, forgot how to do it this time. Last year’s talentless rabble of an opposition now brims with quality, and so on.

The campaign directors have an important role in constructing the post-election narrative. In 1996, Robb so successfully foisted the silly (and empirically wrong) “Howard’s battlers” fable on us that it remains with us today. After Tampa in 2001 Crosby constructed the “conviction politician”, which was again uncritically regurgitated. These tales work mainly because a story needs to be told about the how and why of the election result, and the winner gets first dibs.

And so back to yesterday’s speech. I haven’t been able to get a copy, but the stories today nearly all focus on Gartrell’s assertion that Peter Costello as Liberal leader would not have done better than Howard — in fact he would probably have done worse.

This might be true. Gartrell and the ALP might also believe it.

After the 2004 poll, Loughnane explained that the Liberals had always feared how Simon Crean might perform at an election. This was widely scoffed at, and was probably a try-on, but again the actual assertion is not as silly as it sounds.

Gartrell yesterday also explained that the Coalition had become “estranged” from the electorate. Not bad, but it lacks the punch or pull of “Howard’s battlers” and “conviction politician”.

Must do better Tim. We need a big, alluring story of why the government was so hopeless and a nightmare to even contemplate voting for again in the near future. Maybe it’s there in the speech but was missed by the journos. Perhaps he’s leaving it to the politicians. (Wayne Swan could write this sort of stuff in his sleep.)

But there’s a vacuum there to be filled, and if the ALP doesn’t do it, the journos will instead. You never know what they’ll come up with.