Penny Wong opposed nuclear-waste storage in her home state of South Australia. Tanya Plibersek resigned from the Labor Party after it approved uranium mining in the Northern Territory. Peter Garrett wrote a song that began: “US forces give the nod. It’s a setback for your country.”

If there are two issues that define the beliefs of the Labor Party’s Left wing, which produced these three political leaders, it is opposition to nuclear proliferation and American military power.