In some cases both of these emotions come into play. Gough Whitlam, for example, is still seen as the benchmark for any Labor leader who wishes to be swept into office on a wave of reforming zeal. But later under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating Labor stayed in office for 13 years by patiently pursuing sober neoliberal policies thereby distancing itself from the chaotic side of the actual Whitlam government.

In the winter of 2022, with a recently newly installed federal Labor Prime Minister being now confronted with worrying economic and national security pressures, it is timely to dwell on the example of yet another past Labor prime minister.

Labor's James Scullin was prime minister of Australia from 1929 to 1932. A challenging economic situation briefly buoyed him up before destroying him.

Under Scullin, Labor triumphed in the federal election of October 12, 1929. The Liberal Party of the day - then known as the Nationalists - was reduced to a rump in the House of Representatives. Its leader, prime minister Stanley Bruce, lost his own seat.

The Nationalists were ousted in 1929 because, like the federal Liberals in 2022, they came across as unseemly and cynical. They were prey to infighting with a former leader (Billy Hughes) ever ready to undermine his successor Bruce. The Nationalists were shoddy on the policy front as well. They alternatively sought to beef up and then dismantle the nation's industrial relations system in frantic efforts to demonise the trade union movement.

Bruce's defeat in 1929, just like Scott Morrison's in 2022, ended a period of spin and complacency. During the 1920s Bruce and his colleagues had blithely accepted a mounting level of national indebtedness.

This proto-Morrisonian era of induced insouciance ended in 1929 although by then Bruce of course was gone. The Wall Street crash of 1929 occurred just a few days after Scullin formally took over. Thereupon the capitalist world, including Australia, descended into the Great Depression.

What then happened to Scullin should remind the new Albanese government that disunity and indecision do indeed amount to political death.

A timid initial response to growing unemployment led to Scullin being overwhelmed by factionalism and internal intrigue. A seeming insubordination to the Bank of England and other foreign creditors fuelled a populist internal revolt led by the Trump-like Labor premier of NSW Jack Lang.

A further split occurred when Scullin's treasurer Ted Theodore, in an imaginative but jarring policy switch, adopted a proto-Keynesian approach to the nation's problems by seeking to open up credit through a system of fiduciary notes.

A few alarmed Laborites, led by Joe Lyons from Tasmania, broke with Scullin and Theodore. The nation's business leaders hailed the turncoats as champions of fiscal orthodoxy.

Split three ways, Labor was swept from office when an unfriendly Senate forced it to go to the polls at the end of 1931.

Scullin's undoing happened long ago but the Albanese government can still learn from it. The value of unity and clarity must never be forgotten.

But we cannot leave the federal opposition out of the story.

The two contrasting election outcomes of 1929 and 1931 demonstrate the resilience and persistence of mainstream non-Labor politics in Australia.

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Bruce's Nationalists emerged from the 1929 election as a battered and leaderless rump. But just over two years later Bruce's former supporters secured a magnificent victory. Scullin was a one-term wonder.

In an immediate sense Peter Dutton, as Opposition Leader, should be able to draw comfort from Scullin's fate. What happened after 1929 shows that a defeat in a federal election can speedily be reversed particularly where the non-Labor party is concerned. Resilience and recovery is very much in the DNA of Dutton's party.

After 1929 the now post-Bruce federal opposition reversed its drubbing at the hands of Scullin by undertaking drastic cosmetic action. Midway through 1931 the Nationalist Party abolished itself. Adorned with a few Labor deserters it instantly rebadged itself as the United Australia Party (definitely not to be confused with Clive Palmer's outfit). In this guise it dominated federal politics until the Second World War.

Such a tale of recovery should surely console the new Opposition but for Peter Dutton personally the full story of Scullin's annus horribilis would still have to be ever so disconcerting.

In 1929, John Latham, the member for (where else?) Kooyong, became leader of the opposition when Bruce lost his seat. He was never fated to become Prime Minister though. Realpolitik demanded that he had to give way to the ex-Laborite Joe Lyons when the UAP was formed.

The course of events in 1931 testify to the endurance of organised centre-right politics in Australia. Thus a second term for Anthony Albanese - cannot be taken for granted.

But that does not mean that a Peter Dutton prime ministership will ever happen. At any point over the next three years an alternative leader of opposition will be installed at a moment's notice if circumstances demand it. Dutton's party is resilient because it is highly transactional. Individuals are sacrificed for a greater good.

What happened back in 1929 and 1931 - the bookends of Jim Scullin's prime ministership - remains instructive in so many ways for Peter Dutton as much as for Anthony Albanese.