“Removing Kevin was an act of political bastardry, for sure, but this act of political bastardry was made possible only because Kevin had been such a bastard himself to too many people already.”

And on that we can all probably agree, Nicola Roxon.

But the rest of your John Button Memorial Lecture — obloquy to a figure you opened by describing as an “honourable and good Labor man” — was just vindictive revisionism, as Bernard Keane writes today.

Kevin Rudd’s political career is dead, buried, cremated. Or at least very close to it. Labor has to move on, and people like Roxon should let bygones be bygones.

If Rudd should quit Parliament, it would serve the party well if others could quit harping about an era Labor should try to forget.