It took Frydenberg more than 12 hours to hear about Credlin's comments (what, he wasn't watching live?!), but on Tuesday the minister told Sky's AM host Kieran Gilbert he "stood by his comments and will keep speaking his mind".

"Pathetic" doesn't even begin to do justice to this self-delusion. "I think it probably diminished Josh a little bit in the eyes of conservatives," Credlin had also remarked. "It certainly wouldn't have helped him with the base."

Hang on, Frydenberg is a conservative – far more so than Abbott or his washed-up co-members of the blasphemously named Monash Forum. Credlin's old boss and current flatmate wants to nationalise electricity generation. His politics are closer to those of Labor hero Ben Chifley to those of his former hero John Howard.

Sir John Monash himself would never have qualified as a member of the Monash Forum – first, because our Jewish commander against the German Empire was neither Catholic (as Abbott, Kevin Andrews and Barnaby Joyce are) nor the great-nephew of Adolf Hitler's ambassador to Vichy France (as Eric Abetz is; indeed, the senator's sibling Peter Abetz told SBS Insight in 2015 that despite his role deporting French Jews to death camps "he also did some very positive things".) Also, because he never dyed his hair or moustache. Though Monash did take a mistress when work took him away from his wife (on a three-month steamboat, not a 90-minute QantasLink turboprop) so we suppose Barnaby and he have that in common.

Another Monash member is the ironically named Ian Goodenough (codename: "Barely"), the guy who valued Rolexes that a Chinese billionaire gave to Abbott and his senior team (Abbott reportedly returned his). See, the former Liberal leader wears freebies, but only actual clothes! Two different tailors gifted Abbott suits, one on two different occasions, according to the Parliament's pecuniary interests register.

The blue-black man-dye club: former PM Tony Abbott and former frontbencher Kevin Andrews. Alex Ellinghausen

Is Credlin honestly taken seriously at News Corp – where bluster is a surer guarantor of Lachlan Murdoch's favour than brains have ever been – or is that a carefully disseminated invention, much like her truly awesome power to muzzle ministers? Before, during and after LKM's visit to Australia last week, his newspapers here clamoured to outdo each other's Malcolm Turnbull bashing – The Australian even going after the PM's senior female staffer Sally Cray, whose comparison to Credlin is unsurprising but utterly inapt; Sydney's Daily Telegraph, which actually splashed with a year-old mid-book story about the Turnbulls' independently run family office having a small position in a long-short fund with John Hempton's Bronte Capital.


"MAL'S BET ON AUSSIES TO LOSE" screamed the front page, claiming that short-sellers, engaged in "market manipulation … want good Aussie companies to fail so they can get rich." This is despite less than 10 per cent of the Bronte fund being short Australian shares ("MAL's 90% BET ON AUSSIES NOT TO LOSE" didn't test so well in Chris Dore's focus groups) and despite the fact – which even the barista in the lobby at CommSec knows – that "good Aussie companies" don't fail when they're shorted, their shorters get badly burnt. So what about bad Aussie companies, and our dozy regulators?! Hey, Sharri Markson isn't renowned for her deep-dive investigations into mark-to-market asset valuation.

Nearly 20 federal MPs have accounts with AustralianSuper (including Bill Shorten, who is a former AusSuper director), which "similar to most super funds, employs a range of short and long-selling strategies." Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus even invests in hedgie Regal's Long Short Australian Equity Fund. Where's his firing squad?!

Incidentally, Lachlan's grandfather, Sir Keith Murdoch, plotted to have Monash removed as commander-in-chief of Australia's troops on the Western Front, supposedly because Murdoch couldn't control him. Sound familiar?