Meet Australia's Next Liberal PM

Sydney Morning Herald journalist Jacqueline Maley has written a profile of Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg for Saturday's Good Weekend. Tellingly, it is called Power play. In it, we learn that "he has his sights set... on politics' big prize: the prime ministership."

We also learn that Frydenberg has what it takes to win the 'prize' - he inhabits an elite politician's parallel universe:

"McQuie recounts a conversation among the [sheep] station's workers where Frydenberg couldn't understand how someone could survive on an income of less than $100,000 a year. 'He was like, Wow, good lord, how do you do that?' McQuie says Frydenberg was also impressed at the quiet resourcefulness of the stockmen. 'He said, All my political career I've been telling everyone how good I am, and what my strengths are,' recalls McQuie. 'He said, You guys are so capable, but you don't tell anyone about it'."

Given Frydenberg's vaulting ambition, and since Maley doesn't subject him to the pre-eminent litmus test for intellectual and moral courage in our time - the Palestine/Israel test - we particularly need to know where this product of Melbourne's Bialik & Mount Scopus Memorial colleges stands in relation to the Zionist entity.

While not perhaps conclusive, the following two quotes such that if she had put him to the test, the result would have been a clear, if not epic, fail:

- "I don't agree with everything Israel does but I also will defend its ability to secure itself against some very hostile neighbours." Josh Frydenberg on Q&A, 2015

- "We were with you [Israelis] 100 years ago around the anniversary we commemorate today with Anzac Day, we were with you during the Shoah and I was at Yad Vashem just a couple of days ago, we are with you today at the United Nations, we are with you today on the border with Sinai and Syria [where Australia has peacekeepers] and we will be with you for a long time to come." Josh Frydenberg, quoted in Frydenberg in Israel, The Australian Jewish News, 27/4/17

Hm... I think there's little room for doubt here: Josh Frydenberg is destined to be Australia's next Liberal PM, don't you?