With much talk this week about the end of the Whitlam government, Liberal conservatives might do well to read Gough Whitlam's 1967 speech to the Victorian Labor Party, at the start of his climb to power.
Like the Liberals now, federal Labor had been trounced at the 1966 election. Whitlam was the new leader, and he took on Victorian hardliners who put ideology ahead of electability.
"Certainly, the impotent are pure," Whitlam told the delegates at the conference, in a line that echoed down the years.
Whitlam led from the front and imposed himself on his party, even willing to risk expulsion. (ABC News)
The Liberal conservatives' success in forcing their party to dump its commitment to the net zero emissions reduction target has been a triumph of ideology over pragmatism, worthy of those 1960s Labor zealots.
Walking away from the commitment is ill-judged and politically dangerous. It's also unnecessary.
Many political players, including in Labor, don't think net zero by 2050 is attainable. But the time frame is a generation away.
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