Once upon a time, they sang each other's praises constantly - because it helped both of them.

Then later, supporters of each would background against the other - because it helped their individual advancement.

And now that both have been sent packing by voters, we get another story.

Kevin Rudd was a menacing, angry bully who would deliberately threaten Julia Gillard by leaning into her personal space. So says Julia Gillard. And it might be true.

Or perhaps you believe Kevin Rudd, who says Julia Gillard's imagination has malfunctioned, and her accusations are "utterly false"? That might be true too.

But the bottom line here is that both of them have duped voters by not revealing what they thought about each other - while they were working for us.

And now - by coming out and making accusations they were not prepared to make when it counted - their stories are directed solely at building their own legacies.

It's not new. The depth of animosity between Paul Keating and Bob Hawke wasn't known to most voters until we could no longer vote for them.

The same goes for John Howard and Peter Costello, who now can't seem to stand the sight of each other - despite once being marketed as the best pair of economic hands in the business. So much for teamwork.

In fact all those teams - Rudd and Gillard, Keating and Hawke and Howard and Costello - stood before elections, vouching for each other publicly. Privately, as their own retrospective accounts highlight, it was a completely different story.

And the crackpot accolades senior Laborites handed down on Mark Latham, once seen as Labor's prime ministerial material, now seem risible.

Retrospective vision brings so much into perspective.

So it is with the LNP's review of the last state election; a scandalous performance led by an arrogant and unlikeable leader, who refused to listen to anyone else.

That's now the history of the LNP's Campbell Newman experiment.

In retrospect, colleagues say they all knew that - and that's true. Behind the scenes, his colleagues last year would talk about his lack of consultation, his arrogance, and his inability to tolerate a view other than his own.

But none of them stood up to him. Not one of them dared call him out.

At least until the election was lost. Then it became palatable to reveal what really went on.

The problem - for politicians - is that voters aren't quite as dumb as they think. We can see through the thin veneer of disguised truth, the syrup-ladened speeches about working together for the greater good.

And our gut feeling is rewarded every time a politician puts on their retrospective glasses, and tells us what we already knew.

The decisions made this week by Annastacia Palaszczuk and her government will be put through the same lens, down the track.

And here's a tip. The decision to abolish all boards associated with racing will either be seen as a strong move in response to the shocking revelations of cruelty in greyhound racing.

Or it will be seen as a ploy that allowed Labor to stack its own into key board positions.

The rear vision mirror test rarely fails.