AARON PATRICK: Can former treasurer Josh Frydenberg save the Liberal Party?

When Liberal leader Angus Taylor was asked on Sunday about the prospect of former treasurer Josh Frydenberg returning to politics, his expression of support for the man some Liberals see as the party’s messiah came with an unusual preamble.

“People will play different roles ... whether it’s just liking Facebook and Instagram posts all the way through to being a candidate,” Mr Taylor said on the Insiders program.

So when the Rhodes Scholar hears about his former colleague — a man who has never hidden his leadership ambitions — he thinks of keyboard warriors?

Rumours and speculation about Mr Frydenberg’s return have persisted in the background of Liberal Party politics since the 2022 election, when he lost the Melbourne seat of Kooyong to independent Monique Ryan, mainly due to the unpopularity of his “friend” and pandemic-lockdown housemate, Scott Morrison.

Over the weekend the Frydenberg speculation moved into the foreground when the publicity campaign for his autobiography began in The Australian newspaper, which lavished its front page and magazine cover with handsome photos of the author of the humbly titled A Grateful Son.

The Nightly reached the putative author — cricket writer Gideon Haigh ghosted the text — on Monday during a hectic interview schedule. A man acutely aware of the power of anticipation, he refused to respond to the obvious question raised by the burst of self-induced attention: is the comeback on? The Nightly was told (without being permitted to name the source) that the decision was a matter for early 2027.

That’s hardly a scoop. Other journalists are being told the same, an example of the message discipline that made Mr Frydenberg stand out as a public relations master even in the hyper-self-promotional world of national politics.

There may be no politician on the right who can communicate as clearly and with such apparent sincerity as the private-school Jewish boy and junior tennis prodigy from Melbourne.

A bit more show business

His relentless energy, often channelled into self-promotion, was once laughed at, not least by the journalists who received early-morning and evening phone calls from the Treasurer complaining about minor criticisms in their articles.

Today, as the Coalition drifts along in third place, some Liberal MPs long for a bit more show business atop the Opposition.

Voters too, according to opinion polls. A Newspoll published Monday put Mr Taylor behind Anthony Albanese and Pauline Hanson as preferred prime minister, making it clear the leadership question isn’t one the Liberal Party can avoid forever.

But that doesn’t make Mr Frydenberg’s return assured. Winning Kooyong back doesn’t look easy. While turning his ambitions against him, Ms Ryan reminded voters on Monday of his criticism of Victoria’s extreme lockdown during the pandemic.

“He says he wants to be prime minister, but he doesn’t speak much about Kooyong, and that’s the part of the world that I’m most focused on,” she told the Today Show.

Judging by extracts already published, Mr Frydenberg’s memoir is designed to ingratiate himself with those inner-city voters who rejected him four years ago.

In the book he accuses Mr Morrison, who internal Liberal polling found to be deeply unpopular in seats won by teal independents, of losing his temper, engaging in extreme flattery and publicly lying.

An example of the prime minister’s dishonesty was Mr Morrison’s assertion at a press conference that he did not want Mr Frydenberg to stand as his designated deputy in 2018. “Not six hours earlier he had asked me to run on a ticket and I had refused,” the book states. “Now he was pretending our running independently was a mutual decision. Curious.”

The book includes Mr Frydenberg’s views on policy, including the GST, which he argues is too low, industrial relations rules, which he says are too restrictive, and energy policy, which he argues should rely more on gas (although he seems silent on coal).

“Right now the government is subsidising renewables into the grid via reverse auctions while also subsidising coal-fired power plants and smelters in Queensland and NSW that depend on them: an incoherent and unsustainable strategy,” he writes.

Fighting One Nation

Newspoll estimates the Coalition’s support is at 20 per cent. A Resolve poll on Monday puts it at 23 per cent.

He does not explicitly say so in the published extracts, but Mr Frydenberg’s maths suggests he regards largely wiping out One Nation as the path to power.

“The Coalition must restore its primary vote to the high 30s or low 40s if it is to pave a pathway to government,” he writes. “There is no goat track back to government through regional and outer suburban seats alone. If our vote recedes further in 2028, I cannot see the party surviving in its current form.”

Notwithstanding Andrew Hastie’s attacks on Pauline Hanson, the Coalition has been wary of waging rhetorical warfare with One Nation, worried it would alienate wavering voters.

Mr Frydenberg appears to be offering Liberal MPs, who elect the party leader, a path through the centre. Whether they are buying is unlikely to become clear until after the general election.