Bill Shorten has long been seen as a likely Labor prime minister.
The ambitious former trade union leader became opposition leader after the September 2013 federal election defeat without ever having experienced opposition.
In many respects, the 48-year-old Shorten is the quintessential new breed of Labor MP.
He's from the Melbourne middle class, has a double degree and has no real working record outside the Labor movement. His wife Chloe is daughter of former governor-general Quentin Bryce.
Shorten's main power base was the Australian Workers Union, which he joined as a trainee organiser in 1994.
His rise was quick: Victorian state secretary in 1998, national secretary in 2001.
Helped by his powerful, right-wing union, he also rose in the Labor Party structure to become Victorian state president and a member of the party's national executive.
By 2006 the savvy networker who arrested the union's membership decline was seen by insiders as a coming man, but he remained largely unknown to the country at large.
That changed with the Beaconsfield mine disaster.
The trapped miners were his members and Shorten set up shop there to become, with his regular television appearances, the public face of the long and dramatic rescue operation.
Shorten entered federal parliament when Kevin Rudd became prime minister in 2007, using his factional muscle to dislodge a sitting Labor frontbencher Bob Sercombe from the safe seat of Maribyrnong.
His rise in government was also swift, with his portfolios including financial services, workplace relations and education.
But it was in his first government job, as the relatively lowly parliamentary secretary for disabilities, that he made his biggest mark through critical work on the national disability insurance scheme.
That showed he was more than a political show pony and could do the grinding policy work and the selling within government of a major and complex reform.
On the other hand, as one of the so-called "faceless" men who tossed out Rudd in 2010 then reinstated him in 2013, he did nothing for his reputation for loyalty or consistency.
He said, after helping to depose Julia Gillard, the cause he served was more than just about individuals.
In the month-long contest with Anthony Albanese for the Labor leadership, Shorten summarised his vision into the three Ps - Party, Policy and People.
He presented himself as a campaigner and a builder.
He also, as he no doubt has to, reckons he can win the next federal election.
History is against him on this, but plenty of political history has already been turned on its head in the last six years.
