Beyond the question of just what has been achieved by using a royal commission to pursue Julia Gillard is one that will not be answered for a decade or two.
It is whether we have witnessed a turning point in Australian history, where a political system based on Westminster has morphed into the one that operates in Washington.
What can be said with certainty is that the answer to the threshold question is not much at all. A lot of money has been spent to learn what we already knew – that if Gillard had her time again, she would have handled one matter very differently when she was a young solicitor.
What can also be asserted is that the accusations of illegal and criminal conduct made by Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have been exposed as having no foundation.
The royal commissioner has made some observations about Gillard that will be seized upon by her detractors, but the tone of some of his remarks about the former prime minister and her testimony is perplexing.
Most bewildering is the apparent conclusion that her intelligence, level of preparation and "powerful instinct for self-preservation" made it hard for the royal commissioner to judge her credibility.
"Normally cross-examination of a non-expert witness is a contest between a professional expert who is familiar with every detail of the case and a relatively unwary member of the public who is not," commissioner Heydon wrote.
"But Julia Gillard had 20 years' knowledge of the case and immense determination to vindicate her position. She was, so to speak, a professional expert on her own case."
This inclined him to prefer the testimony of one witness who might be judged "a relatively unwary member of the public" on one matter and to brand her version on another as having "every badge of an injudicious afterthought".
But it is the second question that is far more important in the long run.
Have we now reached the point where it will be expected that incoming government's institute royal commissions into the conduct of their opponents, trash the notion of cabinet confidentiality, recall ambassadors on political grounds and banish public servants who worked on projects they opposed?
Only an interim finding can be offered on this question and it should be a sobering one for both sides of politics.
