Josh Frydenberg is emerging as the uber-active keeper of Australia’s purse strings. From telling major Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto to move the majority of its board and chief executive to Australia, where Rio earns the bulk of its money, to curbing Chinese investment, threatening direct government involvement in a new energy plan, ordering closer scrutiny of the big four banks, and promoting a “jobs, jobs, jobs” budget, Australia’s Treasurer is a busy man painting on a wide economic canvas.

So far, the signals are mixed about how much Frydenberg’s fiscal road runner style is determined by the tumultuous times we live in, and the extent to which he is cut from a different cloth compared with Coalition predecessors such as Peter Costello, John Howard, Phillip Lynch, Bill Snedden, William McMahon, Harold Holt and Arthur Fadden.