″Josh can f--- off,” Simon Holmes à Court explodes in the most memorable moment of our 90-minute lunch in Melbourne’s Hawthorn, where he lives and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is fighting for his, and his government’s, political life.

I’d messaged the Treasurer’s office earlier to let them know about my lunch date and on my way to the restaurant, Frydenberg called and bent my ear for 15 minutes, suggesting a few tough questions he would ask Holmes à Court. One of those was how much time the son of Australia’s first billionaire, Robert Holmes à Court, spent on his off-grid, 36-hectare farm at Daylesford, during the two years of Melbourne’s extended lockdowns.