The former treasurer’s new book will hit shelves soon, but he may learn that memoirs can be blunt instruments for political renewal. Just ask Peter Costello
Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s new memoir, marketed as a coming-of-age story, family history and pandemic retrospective rolled into one, is due to hit shelves soon. Publisher HarperCollins Australia promises it will be a reflection “on what political power can and cannot achieve, on the cost of public life in an increasingly divided world, and on the unique promise and potential of Australia”.
The press release promises an account of how Australia achieved “one of the strongest economic and health recoveries in the world” in the wake of the pandemic and a rumination on Frydenberg’s many ways to lead: “In his inspiring advocacy against antisemitism and hate in the aftermath of Australia’s deadliest domestic terrorist attack at Bondi, he found the words many were searching for.”
Some observers see it as the latest tactic in a larger strategy to help position Frydenberg – who lost his seat to independent Monique Ryan in 2022 – for a potential comeback.
If the pundits are correct and Frydenberg’s midlife memoir is part of a tilt, it would suggest the former treasurer has yet to learn from the fable of so many predecessors.
Book-length political myth-making is not new to today’s politicians. It’s a tried and tested tool in American presidential candidacies, from John F Kennedy through to Joe Biden. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama showed what a well-timed book could do for an up-and-coming leader.
In the 20th century, Labor partisans languishing in opposition were the ones most likely to emulate the Americans. A growing local publishing industry urged them on. But the men who published in the 1960s, such as opposition leader Arthur Calwell and senior left figure Jim Cairns, quickly found that they were, to borrow Lloyd Bentsen’s immortal words, “no Jack Kennedy”.
Labor parliamentarians such as Lindsay Tanner and Wayne Swan published more political musings during the Howard years. Sales were rarely stellar and just one, an up-and-coming western Sydney MP named Mark Latham, found that his densely cerebral book, Civilising Global Capital (1998), marked him out as a possible leader. In any case, observers such as Michelle Grattan knew that “Labor books” tended to become “Liberal weapons” before long.
Liberals have more recently turned to this version of performance politics, curating personas and sculpting personal backstories in service of a larger ambition.
The crisis of authority within the Liberal party post Howard has seen bitter conflict between factions, leaders and ideological traditions. Owning one’s own history, and that of the party generally, has in that context become a more important feature of conservative politicking.
Tony Abbott’s mid-career memoir, Battlelines, helped make him leader. That book began as a project to help Abbott recover from what colleagues called a “political funk”. It gave him a larger public platform and a series of controversial policy ideas (ranging from carbon charges and a referendum for greater commonwealth constitutional power, through to age pension reforms and a special “covenant” form of marriage) to debate with his interviewers. It culminated in a promotional tour that showed he still had communicative skills – and a little charisma.
Abbott’s book events conveniently became dialogues with increasingly disillusioned Liberal members who loathed the then Rudd government’s emissions reduction policy. Earlier inclined to concede the issue, Abbott was emboldened to pick a fight with Labor and, in the first instance, with climate-conscious opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, whose job he secured by a single vote in a party room on 1 December 2009.
But Battlelines was the exception, not the norm.
In 2011, Liberal frontbencher Andrew Robb published a very decent book, Black Dog Daze, describing his suffering and treatment for diurnal variation (serious morning depressions). It was an honest and brave account of a sensitive personal topic. But it too was shaped by leadership aspirations that would go unfulfilled.
In government, Christopher Pyne published a book called A Letter to My Children, explaining his approach to public service and the inspiration of his father, the late ophthalmologist Remington Pyne. The book and its marketing softened his reputation as a parliamentary antagonist and would-be deregulator of higher education fees. But that hardly placed him in the “winner’s circle”, as it were.
