The true believers, proud of their history and with hope for the future, assembled in Melbourne on 27 April 2004 to celebrate the first time the Labor Party formed a federal ministry a century before – and, of course, to attend the launch of the obligatory book commemorating the event, So Monstrous a Travesty.

That government, led by Chilean-born John Christian Watson (1867-1941), lasted four months. Born Johan Cristian Tanck, the son of ‘a Chilean-German father and a New Zealand-Irish mother’, Watson might not have been entitled to sit in parliament, since it is likely that he wasn’t a British subject; the adoption of a stepfather’s surname conveniently obscured his origins. Watson’s ministry was pilloried in the press (with few exceptions), and Labor couldn’t achieve much as a minority government in such a short period. It fell victim to the unscrupulous political conniving of its opponents. The government had nevertheless performed well, departed with dignity, and established Labor’s right to govern by demonstrating its ability to do so. It was ‘the world’s first national labour government’.