This week, as Labor wrapped up the parliamentary year cock-a-hoop with its commanding majority, its new environmental laws passed and an extended honeymoon summer ahead after a historic election win, a new book appeared from one of this masthead’s favourite columnists.

Niki Savva’s Earthquake: The Election that Shook Australia analyses, in forensic detail, what went wrong for Peter Dutton and the Coalition in the 2025 election campaign. For that reason alone, it’s worth reading. But Savva also reveals excruciating new details about Labor’s factional manoeuvrings – led by the Victorian Right’s Richard Marles and Sam Rae – that led to the axing of cabinet ministers Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic straight after the election.

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As Husic said at the time, Marles, as deputy prime minister, should have been more statesman and less factional assassin. But Marles had the numbers and he used them ruthlessly to promote his lieutenants.

The consequence of that, as Savva reports, is that the deputy prime minister’s relationship with the NSW Right – the self-styled king-making faction – will never be restored, severely damaging any chance Marles has of becoming prime minister one day.

Dreyfus and Husic have mostly kept their counsel since the election, though Dreyfus last week called for Labor to pursue a referendum on fixed four-year terms. Husic has carefully confined his commentary to certain issues since his initial spray at the deputy prime minister.

Until now.

Long seen by some in caucus as a lone wolf, the western Sydney MP has decided to speak up from the backbench because he is concerned the government lacks ambition and that too many in the caucus are afraid to speak. The party has overcorrected for the dissent, chaos and ill-discipline of the Rudd-Gillard years.

Asked if he was punished for speaking out on........

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