Nigeria, May 6 -- The dust had barely settled on the Australian federal election on May 3 before the hagiographers, mythmakers and revisionists got to work. If history is seen as a set of agreed upon facts, there was a rapidly growing consensus that Labor's imposing victory had been the result of a superb campaign, sparkling in its faultlessness.

This did not quite match pre-election remarks and assessments. The government of Anthony Albanese had been markedly unconvincing, marked by dithering, short sightedness and a lack of conviction. It had, rather inexplicably, made the conservative Coalition led by that cruel, simian looking automaton Peter Dutton, look electable.

Overall, the campaign on the part of both sides of politics was con...