The phones have stopped ringing. It’s eerie and doesn’t feel right. The usual mischief-makers have stopped taking calls and answering texts for more than a week and everyone knows time is running out for a change. It’s a false calm, but it’s the first indication that Rudd’s reinstatement campaign is being executed differently and therefore might succeed this time.

Wednesday starts with a text: ‘if anything happening it will be later on today.’ That’s settled. This source never lies, never exaggerates: it’s on. The news coverage also has the same air of inevitability about it: today’s the day. The familiar surge of adrenalin starts. I’m no veteran of the Press Gallery, having been here a mere five years, but leadership challenges have become a staple of the Canberra diet. Kevin Andrews’ bid to topple Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 in which he came only 13 votes shy of winning had been the stand-out in terms of absurdity, but then came Simon Crean’s lone implosion, calling on a challenge before there was a confirmed challenger.

Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott both announce they’re quitting politics. It all adds to the sense that something breaks today. And it does. By lunch reports of a petition to bring on a ballot emerge. My first instinct is to check the phone is charging: it’s going to get a workout today. I fire off a dozen texts and start phoning what feels like the entire Caucus. Practically no one answers, and those who do write smart alec responses to fervent questioning about the mysterious petition which nobody will admit to signing or even seeing. Unlike during the last challenges, no one is talking. The frustration is immense. An hour later, one Laborite not usually shy of publicly stating their case tells me they’ve signed it, but even that took plenty of coaxing and they won’t go on the record. Later, Julia Gillard jokes it’s the Loch Ness Monster of petitions: ‘No one has seen it.’

The petition, whether it exists or not, serves its purpose. After Question Time, Julia Gillard calls a ballot, the third time she has done so as prime minister. We’ve averaged so many leadership challenges in the past five years it feels as though they’ve become ever-present, and the switch to rolling coverage online, on Twitter and on radio feels not only familiar but habitual. Since 2009, Turnbull has been challenged twice, Kevin Rudd lost his job when he didn’t even contest, tried and failed two years later and was a no-show in March.

‘It’s never dead with Kevin,’ a Liberal frontbencher remarked to me one night in May, straight after reading over Rudd’s lengthy reasons for changing position on same-sex marriage. Since Rudd’s emphatic declaration he would never lead Labor again, I had been inclined to disagree. But by June it’s obvious it’s on again. His closest advisors believe the time has passed for a cross-factional drafting, and to give up this last chance of change would be fatal for his political career. But after March’s no-show, everyone needs to hear from Rudd himself.

In the end it comes down to numbers. They’ve been shifting his way for weeks, something no longer disputed by Gillard’s numbers men. Of course Rudd will challenge. Of course he has the numbers. An ill-looking Bill Shorten seals the deal as his colleagues prepare for the all too regular march to the Caucus Room, but it’s a good hour before the 57-45 result is made public.

Julia Gillard’s exit speech shows her steely resilience at its best. It’s incredible witnessing her cracking jokes and an honour to say I was here, that I saw this moment for myself. The last time I witnessed a Prime Minister ousted he wept at the loss. This speech alone ensures the rewrites of Julia Gillard’s legacy will be kinder than the first drafts.

It’s a time warp. From ‘cooking with gas’ to his infamous desire to ‘zip’ to his tendency towards unpunctuality, Rudd reincarnated is a surreal affair to watch. It’s a night for marvelling at resilience and tenacity. After the losses, the false starts, Comeback Kev has staged the most remarkable resurrection we might ever see in Australian politics. His ambition never died and he finally finessed his tactics to match his self-belief.

Prime ministers rarely drop by the Press Gallery these days, especially not for social visits, as it’s the one space in Parliament House the media are allowed to freely film and doorstep politicians. Gillard, fed up with navigating the pack, began conducting interviews out of her office instead of media studios, so there’s a stir when Kevin Rudd wanders up to Level 2 and drops by each bureau to say g’day. The new (old) prime minister is clearly a man intent on showing how he’s changed, publicly reaching out to former enemies, including those in the Press Gallery. There’s talk of drinks for journalists in the PMO the next night, which would mark precisely one week since his colleagues began casting their votes for a man so many of them publicly despised.

Gillard had begun inviting some bureaux over for dinner at the Lodge in the dying months of her prime ministership but the gesture came too late. It’s a mistake Rudd wants to avoid. He moved back into his old office on Tuesday. How does it feel to be doing this all over again? ‘Like I’ve got a lot of things to do,’ he replies.