It was three weeks ago that Kristina Keneally made a public call for fresh faces to bolster the Labor Party before the state election.

She even raised the prospect – some would say of last resort – of recruiting outside the ALP's depleted ranks. Luring a few so-called "star recruits".

Fast forward to last Friday and Phil Koperberg, the former Rural Fire Service chief – and Labor's star recruit of the 2007 campaign – announced to no one's surprise that he was retiring from politics.

Koperberg's once promising political career was pretty much dead on arrival, derailed by accusations of domestic violence – police found no evidence to sustain them – and then crunched by the factional machine of the ALP. He said as much himself.

The case of Koperberg gives further relevance to the observations of former Wran minister Rodney Cavalier, who on Wednesday will launch his take on Labor's woes in a book Power Crisis: The Self-destruction of a State Labor Party.