More than any other individual - from a long list of contributors to Labor's appropriately punishing fall from grace in NSW - Edward Moses Obeid is challenged only by John Robertson, perversely the ALP's new leader, for the title of having wreaked greatest damage on the party that governed this state for 52 of the past 70 years.

Rather than serve the ALP, Obeid was determined for it to serve him. Essentially a policy-free zone, his skills were limited to the assiduous pursuit of those vulnerable and hapless souls whose ambitions in politics far outweigh their talents, and to enforcing the consequences of disloyalty (that is, anything short of craven obedience) towards him and his clique. He who must be Obeid, went the line.

Many factors, many individuals, many shortcomings, many scandals and much stupidity, hubris and short-sightedness contributed to Labor's worst election defeat, a result so emphatic it questions whether revival is likely, even possible. But if any events are pivotal points at which things went seriously wrong for Labor's 16 years, two stand out as emblematic. One was Obeid's challenge to Carr's authority - indeed, his declaration of war on the then premier. The other was the union leader Robertson's chest-beating humiliation of government leaders and MPs, as if the demands of self-serving union leaders are ascendant to the people's choice expressed at the ballot box.

After Robertson et al demolished the then premier Morris Iemma in 2008, having already bullied and blockaded Labor MPs from entering Parliament because the unions did not like reform of a rickety workers compensation scheme, Paul Keating wrote him a note. ''If the Labor Party's stocks ever get so low as to require your services in its parliamentary leadership, it will itself have no future.''

Labor's killing machine spoils the party

and from Mike Carlton .....

''No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?''

- George Orwell, Animal Farm

Life on the farm goes on, unchanging. Pigs rule. The Sussex Street fix was in months ago, chaos ex machina, and so the former union supremo John Robertson has been duly ''elected'' as Labor's new parliamentary leader in NSW. Unopposed, comrades! This despite Paul Keating's magnificent denunciation: lead weight in the saddle bag, without moral authority, a fly-by-nighter with the political corpses of 25 former Labor members hanging around his neck etc. Still got it, Paul.

Not that the leader's job is worth a toss right now. Understandably bitter though he is, Morris Iemma probably called it correctly. ''Better to give him the leadership and allow himself to burn out,'' he said on Tuesday. ''The great tragedy for Labor supporters and the people of NSW is that there's nothing left to lead.''

Too true. If Robertson takes Labor to the 2015 election and wins, I will parade naked down Macquarie Street playing God Save the Queen on a tin whistle. Meanwhile, I would like to hear more of his part in the disposal of Currawong, the old trade union holiday resort on the sleepy shores of Pittwater.

Robertson flogged this Elysian spot to a developer mate in 2007. Not to the highest bidder, mind you. After much mysterious faffing about, too complex to explore here, the Keneally government suddenly - and very quietly - bought Currawong from that same developer mate for $12 million. Just weeks before the election. If I were the Coalition's chief dirt digger, I would have the files on my desk first thing Monday.

The ALP bloodletting has been great sport. Ed Husic, the tyro federal MP for Chifley and another former union boss, shot back a splendid serve about Keating ''getting his jollies chortling into his Twinings in whichever Labor heartland seat he is in these days''. And the feud between Frank Sartor and Eddie Obeid will go the full 10 rounds.

Watch this space. For now, we shall leave the NSW ALP crouched in a dark and cobwebbed corner of the asylum, scratching its fleas and gibbering to itself.