Josh Frydenberg is choosing life, having reintroduced himself to his wife and children and slept in his own bed for more than a year.
In his shoes, I would choose life too. But his decision does have implications for the Liberal party, at least in the short term.
Frydenberg electing to remain in the sidelines solves one problem for Peter Dutton. If the Victorian ran in Kooyong at the next federal election, journalists (being journalists) would expend endless energy blind quoting anonymous sources and filing hot takes about who might be Liberal leader after the contest.
The impeccably networked Frydenberg staying out of the fray (and off the phone) spares Dutton that irritation. It removes a distraction. It allows Dutton to be Dutton.
We get Full Dutton. Which is kind of the problem, though, if not enough Australians rally behind putative prime ministerial Peter.
Frydenberg taking himself out of the picture for 2025 represents a sliding doors moment for the Liberal party. If the former treasurer was plotting a comeback, there could always be another kind of Liberal leader and another kind of Liberal party; a progressive centre-right party, rather than the Liberal party of Tony Abbott and Dutton, a couple of self-styled populists raging against the machine, punching on against the alleged “inner-city elites”.
There is no guarantee that Frydenberg would have won back Kooyong for the Liberals at the next federal election. But minus the baggage of being Scott Morrison’s wingman, well past the period of Lodge sleepovers during the pandemic, the former treasurer would be in with a chance.
While victory in Kooyong remains moot, this much is entirely clear. Frydenberg would have zero prospect of winning back Kooyong if he presented himself to locals as a clone of Dutton.
Frydenberg 2.0 would have to be Frydenberg. Climate change would be real. Affability in the public square would be a virtue, because railing against woke elites wouldn’t wash in the heartland of the alleged thought criminals.
And Frydenberg being Frydenberg in Kooyong while Dutton was Dutton everywhere else, and particularly north of the Tweed, shifts the centre of gravity. This would generate a conversation about party identity that becomes very difficult to resolve.
For the record, Frydenberg isn’t ruling out a return to public life at some stage. All he’s saying is not now. Also, for the record, Frydenberg isn’t the only Liberal capable of setting a different tone to Dutton. Others possess that capacity, and more will come through the pipeline in time.
But, for the moment, the Liberal party is on a very different path. At the moment the Liberal party, federally, is Dutton. L’État, c’est moi.
Queensland holds both leadership positions in the Coalition. The right is in control. The teal wash in 2022 reduced the moderates to a rump.
Having gained full command of the ship, Dutton has unleashed Peak Dutton™ on the Australian public in the hope the peak Dutton strategy overcomes his measurable weaknesses as an alternative prime minister in the way that Peak Abbott™ ultimately overcame that candidate’s weakness.
The strategy is simple: make people angry.
Make them boil. Make them so blisteringly angry with the incumbents that they forget they don’t like you.
This worked for Abbott. Dutton wants it to work for him too.
Wreckers can absolutely win the biggest prize in politics.
Donald Trump did. Abbott did before him.
But recent history also tells us the wreckers tend to struggle once they reach the summit, when the contest in government is about winning the future rather than conjuring up faux enemies to vanquish as you circle the drain.
