Josh Frydenberg may be entertaining a return to federal politics, but finding a seat is only the beginning. His record, Liberal Party divisions and the rise of One Nation make the path back considerably harder.

Only three of the past 10 federal treasurers made it through to being prime ministers. John Howard, who was Malcolm Fraser’s last treasurer, had to wait 13 years between these jobs, and his succession was far from automatic. But most of the rest served in their positions expecting that they would be, could be or should be the natural successor to the prime minister. Not a few thought themselves extra entitled because of the bastardries of their leader, or the hard yards they had to make while the leader swanned around. Only Keating murdered his prime minister; perhaps Scott Morrison achieved it by sleight of hand.

Josh Frydenberg was Scott Morrison’s treasurer, and, like Morrison (and before him Wayne Swan, under Kevin Rudd during the GFC) deserves some credit for keeping the economy flush with cash during an international financial crisis. But then he lost his (quite safe) seat.

Like Bob Hawke, he seemed always to think it divinely ordained that he would one day lead the Liberal Party and perhaps save it from itself during its darkest hours. The first obstacle before him was that he would have had to stand for party preselection again, and to have persevered while the party fell apart, in part because a person of his background and standing was not there to lead it away from unforced errors.

He ducked his first opportunity, thus avoiding further personal disaster when the electorate surveyed the state of his party and its policies, and its leadership and direction under Peter Dutton. Since then, we have had the phenomenon of One Nation – people not at all to his temper or style of politics – but the Liberal Party is thought (by some) to have stabilised under the leadership of Angus Taylor.

Now Frydenberg is flirting about whether he should go back into politics – indeed, whether it is his duty to do so. Naturally he wants this dilemma publicly discussed. He would prefer if it was taken for granted, through a loud clamour, that it was his duty to serve and that his party needed him. Though he has reserved his position to a moment of greatest advantage, it can be assumed that he will answer the call if it is loud enough.

In certain respects, the Liberals could use someone of his talents. He is seen as a party moderate, though a liberal disposition was never particularly evident while he was in power. After an experiment with Sussan Ley, the party leadership fell into Taylor’s hands, and he has taken the party away from the centre and towards conservative extremes. Taylor can complain that he is squeezed between Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, on one hand, and a calculating Anthony Albanese who has deliberately shifted the Labor Party to the political right.

Labor has plonked itself in Frydenberg’s place at the net

Labor firmly occupies the middle ground of........

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