He was in town just 24 hours. He drove from Sydney late Sunday and back home to Glebe late Monday. He stayed Sunday night at a motel just off the road to Queanbeyan after a 75-minute walk, a nightly ritual. Next morning, in a good mood, he set the cat loose. At 10am on Monday, before a small group of officials and a couple of his former ministerial staffers, in the National Archives building which used to be a post office behind stately Old Parliament House, Faulkner signed a so-called Deed of Gift, ceding ownership to the Commonwealth of what is now the John Faulkner Collection, made up of 40 years of personal and official records, documents, files, transcripts of interviews and policy advice "created and maintained in various ministerial roles", minutes of meetings both ministerial and party political in government and in opposition, and umpteen other materials hoarded over the years. There is even a cricket bat signed and presented to him by the Indian test cricket team of the day.

It is an extraordinary collection, totalling 100 metres of boxed records numbering approximately 2300 individual items now listed on the National Archives online database and stored in secure Archives repositories in both Sydney and Canberra.

Anne McLean, a senior Archives official, remarks: "The collection represents a rich record of a significant individual's political career, and also provides a unique insight and record of the ALP."

It is an observation likely to cause a certain tightening of the sphincter muscle among various of Faulkner's colleagues, not least in NSW where he was state assistant general secretary for nine years until he entered the Senate in 1989, the same year Faulkner became a delegate to Labor's rigidly-factionalised national executive, where the left and right factions, with the centre now gone, collude to keep both happy, and bugger the rank and file membership.

The National Archives notes: "Through the Deed of Gift, the John Faulkner collection becomes archival resources of the Commonwealth and will be preserved and made available for access, in accordance with the Archives Act." In other words, it isn't open slather to see what is there. Still, the queue will be a long one.

Thus Faulkner's good mood last Monday morning. He'd have enjoyed immensely the morning tea hosted by Archives that followed the brief ceremony of his signing. An obsessive, Faulkner has been squirrelling material away with Archives since April 2002. Thirteen years, in all.

Yet not all was sunlight in John's world. When Carol Mills, the controversial former head of the Commonwealth's department of Parliamentary Services was sacked last month by Sydney's ferocious Bronwyn Bishop, the Speaker of the House, and Tasmania's Stephen Parry, the Senate President – both from the Liberal Party – one joyous twitterer, a bloke, wryly emailed: "Somewhere, John Faulkner closes a file." Faulkner does not Twitter or Facebook or selfie or anything else that seems to stir the latter-day communications multitude, but he delighted in the remark when he learned of it, his office having been spied on by Mills' snooping department via the Parliament's security TV scanners last year.

Yet while Mills lost her job, we learnt two weeks ago she took with her severance pay of $380,000 of public money. Mills disclosed the payout herself to a parliamentary committee, an admission that seemed to outrage people even more than the accused sins that had got her sacked. That brings us to one of the more intriguing stories likely to evolve over the next 18 months.

It concerns Australia's Kevin Rudd, the Labor prime minister cut down, first, by his conniving deputy, Julia Gillard, and her mates, in 2010 and then, after clawing his way back into office when some of the "mates", including the now Labor leader, Bill Shorten, deserted Mrs Stringbag, our Kevin got done over, but good, in 2013 by the voters preferring Tony and his mob, God help us.

It also concerns Helen Clark, the once Labour prime minister of New Zealand, an engaging and very savvy political leader streets ahead of her trans-Tasman sister, and one who led her party to three election victories and governed for nine years, between 1999 and 2008.

Both Rudd and Clark now live in New York, where Clark heads up the United Nations's aid agency and Rudd, after giving up a senior academic post, is apparently with a new think tank involving the Pacific rim and various Asian countries. But what each has their eye very firmly on, we're told, is replacing the United Nations Secretary-General, South Korea's 70-year-old Ban-Ki Moon, when he completes his second five-year term at the end of next year.

Last year, when New Zealand put up its hand for a seat on the UN security council, Australian diplomats advised them not to run, as Australia had only recently completed a two-year term and another South Pacific country would be most unlikely to be voted in. And what happened?

Of course! New Zealand ignored the advice, went ahead and won the ballot and took the vacancy. And in winning, New Zealand gained seven more votes than did Australia when it had won after spending an absolute poultice duchessing UN members' support. NZ began its two-year term on the Security Council from January 1 this year. And why did they win and poll more strongly than had done Australia two years earlier?

Because, say the Kiwis, they're seen as more independent and less subservient to Washington.