The man, the myths are exposed Kevin Rudd's campaign poster using only his Christian name. TONY Abbott's landslide win over Labor hasn't just destroyed perhaps our most deceitful and chaotic government. It also exposed five myths that helped to ruin Labor. Not that you would guess that from the self-denial of its leaders. Kevin Rudd on Saturday night made out as if he'd actually left Labor in great shape, despite Labor winning the lowest primary vote in a century. "I am proud that despite all the prophets of doom that we have preserved our federal parliamentary Labor party as a viable fighting force for the future," he boasted. The man tipped to be Labor's next leader, Bill Shorten, even carried on as if Labor's green madness was an asset, not a poison. "There should be a price on carbon pollution," he said after an election Abbott billed as a "referendum on the carbon tax." Labor's real problem was simply "disunity." Another contender, Anthony Albanese, also swore yesterday to keep fighting on global warming, and claimed Labor's past six years would be judged "kindly." This level of denial threatens to lead Labor to an even worse hammering next time. It must ditch these myths or die. MYTH 1: Tony Abbott is unelectable Former Labor pollster Rod Cameron and union pollster Peter Lewis declared Abbott "unelectable." Laura Tingle, now of the Financial Review, four years ago declared Abbott's election as Liberal leader "a disaster of epic proportions" for the party. Labor spent years telling voters Abbott was a "sexist" and a "thug" with a "woman problem." "Misogynist," shouted Julia Gillard. "A pugilist," sneered Rudd. But the election campaign revealed to many voters the Abbott I know - an intelligent, disciplined, determined and good-humoured man. In office, Abbott will have many more chances to show people what he really is, including compassionate and moral. And if Abbott stays as consultative as Prime Minister as he was as Opposition leader - and resists his sudden enthusiasms - he will be even stronger at the next election. Labor had better not spend the next three years merely assuming Abbott is a dunce who will inevitably slip over if it smears him enough. MYTH 2: The rules of social media Labor boasted that no one in this country had more followers on Twitter than Rudd. Gillard's team skited that no politician had a more sophisticated social media campaign. Labor and unions started groups such as "Women for Gillard" and "Destroy the Joint." Unions funded GetUp, an alleged "independent" online activist group that claims "half a million members." And all the social media hot buttons were pushed - same-sex marriage, Abbott's alleged misogyny, being nicer to boat people. Even Christian Rudd at the end backed same-sex marriage - an issue hot on Twitter but tepid among the millions who actually decided this election. But Labor followed that Twitter bird - right over a cliff. All its tweets ended in one loud splat. MYTH 3: Global warming is a huge issue Labor hailed global warming as the "great moral challenge of our generation" because it had run out of causes to prove its superior morality. The working class had grown too rich for envy politics. Red AIDS ribbons had faded. Feminism had so mainstreamed that even Abbott now promises absurdly expensive parental leave. But then the drought ended and the planet continued to fail to warm - for 15 years now. Result: Labor has been punished for giving us a carbon tax that once seemed so popular, yet now seems a useless burden. Abbott, savaged by Labor as a warming sceptic, is rewarded for promising to axe the tax and strip billions from green schemes. Tasmania - once the greenest state - on Saturday swung hardest to Abbott. The Greens lost more than a quarter of their national vote, and probably their balance of power in the Senate. If Labor keeps backing a carbon tax of any kind, it is likely to be belted again. If, by the next election, the planet has failed for three more years to warm, Labor will look mad to still insist on higher power prices to stop what's stopped already. MYTH 4: You can divide and conquer Which idiots in Labor thought it smart to turn Australians against each other? Labor thought that was a great campaign technique, pitting women against men, poor against the "greedy" rich, workers against miners. How stupid. Make someone your enemy and they'll never vote for you. Make enough enemies and you cannot win. Labor must lose that hectoring and bullying tone. Humility and respect are the new political virtues. And Labor should drop other hallmarks of the arrogant - like its itch to censor newspapers and restrict free speech. More respect, please. More bringing together of Australians. Less preaching and more persuasion. MYTH 5: Personal popularity matters For nearly three years Labor fooled itself - and many journalists - into believing a popular leader could save a lousy party come the election crunch. For almost every month she was prime minister, Gillard was more popular than Abbott. Then Rudd was brought back because he was meant to be even more popular. Even in the very last week of the campaign, the Nielsen poll showed he was preferred to Abbott as prime minister. Yet Labor was still smashed. Performance counts. What a government does actually matters more than how its leader seems. But Labor even today still recites a form of this leadership myth, claiming it lost simply because of disunity at the top. It refuses to admit there would have been no leadership battles between Rudd and Gillard had either led well and ran a competent government. Their government's approval ratings would have looked after themselves, and there would have been no call to tear down either leader. Labor's chaos and spin wounded it. So did cheating voters by promising one thing before an election and doing the opposite after. Mistakes can be corrected, but myths must be confronted. Is Labor honest enough for that work? Dare it admit to the blindness that has led it to such destruction?