For Labor hard-heads moping about the party's relatively flat performance in Victoria, the universal question being asked on Saturday night was: why did Daniel Andrews bring the CFA issue so dramatically to a head just weeks before the federal election? And what role did it ultimately play in influencing the result? 
With about half the vote counted, Labor had, by 9pm, secured a solid swing of 3.3 per cent to lead by a wafer-thin 50.7 in two-party-preferred terms. In Victoria, the swing to Labor was about 1.8 per cent, with the party in danger of losing the seat of Chisholm to the Liberals. Batman appeared too close to call with Labor incumbent David Feeney clinging on by the narrowest of margins against the Greens.
Whereas other states, particularly NSW and Tasmania, produced solid gains for Labor, in Victoria there was almost no upside, with the Liberal Party easily retaining the seats of Corangamite, Deakin and La Trobe. With the result hanging in the balance (and a narrow Coalition victory looking likely), serious questions are now being raised about the impact Daniel Andrews' scorched-earth response to the CFA crisis had on the federal result.
As one well-placed Labor source put it, if the dispute has gone on for 1000 days, what difference would it have made to Andrews had he waited a few more weeks before taking such explosive action to resolve the dispute in the union's favour? Probably not much.
While delaying until after the election would have cost Andrews little, there are plenty of angry people in the federal Labor Party who reckon it cost them. How much is a point of contention. Among other things, it exposed an Achilles' heel for Labor, adding weight to claims the party is beholden to the self-interested and aggressive unions.
The impact of the CFA dispute should not be overstated. In the end, there was no army of 10,000 angry CFA volunteers at polling booths urging people to vote Liberal.
So what about the suburban seat of Chisholm, representing the Coalition's only likely Victorian gain? The claim from state Labor sources is that the CFA had little impact, with the loss more explained by retirement of former speaker Anna Burke.
In Corangamite, with the memory of the Wye River fires still fresh, the claim is that the party was never on track to win, CFA dispute or not. The argument is that Labor was never going to win, with internal polling showing Labor on 47 per cent to 53 per cent. These arguments are well and good. But with Malcolm Turnbull likely to win by the narrowest of margins, Andrews is going to face some tough questions from his own party. Not least among them is the question of what might have been.