Former prime minister Tony Abbott is considering putting pen to paper and writing a sequel to his 2009 book Battlelines, which his publisher says would make the case for the Liberal Party to return to its conservative roots.
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And Mr Abbott is having a range of policy ideas costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, in a clear sign he intends to contribute to public policy debate in the Coalition in the months and years ahead - even if it is from the backbench, and not via a return to the cabinet.
The former prime minister's publisher, Melbourne University Press chief executive Louise Adler, said she was hopeful the book would be released in 2017.
Mr Abbott told Fairfax Media on Wednesday that "it's true that my friend Louise Adler has been pestering me for a long time to write another book".
"Someone suggested that having written Battlelines, now I should write Battlescars," he joked.
"I don't want to write another book unless I have got something worthwhile to say. At the moment I'm pondering just what that might be."
Mr Abbott played down the significance of his having policy costings undertaken and would not say what policy areas he was looking at.
"Like many other members of parliament, from time to time I ask the PBO to do some work. I'm not on my 'Pat Malone' there," he said.
The former prime minister has indicated to colleagues he has no interest in stoking internal tensions within the Coalition, which last month rose to the surface in spectacular fashion over the ongoing ban on the Adler shotgun, and over reform of the NSW branch of the Liberal Party.
Despite this, news that the former prime minister is prepared to put pen to paper again is sure to cause concern for some members the Turnbull government.
Mr Turnbull is from the moderate wing of the party and promised to lead a "thoroughly Liberal" government when he became prime minister, though he has since reached out to the conservative wing of the party - earning praise from his predecessor.
Mr Abbott's first book, published in 2009 months before he successfully took the job of opposition leader from Malcolm Turnbull, was part-autobiography, part-conservative call to arms and part-policy manifesto.
While he was tight-lipped about the book's subject, Ms Adler indicated that discussions about the sequel were well advanced and that she expected Mr Abbott would "be making the case for conservatives, that the Liberal Party should be a centre-right party".
"After Donald Trump's ascendancy this becomes an interesting question for conservatives and for Labor too. I expect Tony to make the case for the Liberal Party to return to its conservative roots," she said.
"I'm hopeful we will have a book out next year, we don't have a working title yet . . .Tony thinks long and hard about what being a conservative is in modern Australia. There should be a battle of ideas in politics and he is engaged in that."
Meanwhile in Parliament on Wednesday, the Coalition and Labor traded blows about the growing threat to Australia's AAA credit rating.
Mr Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison hailed the successful passage of superannuation reforms that caused consternation in Coalition ranks during the election, which will deliver net revenue of about $3 billion.
And the government is increasingly confident it will be able to pass a law to re-establish the construction industry watchdog, the ABCC, after already passing the Registered Organisations bill this week.
Those super savings, however, are likely to be overshadowed by flat wages growth and company tax receipts, which will drive down government revenue and further blow out the deficit.
Mr Morrison said that if Australia lost its AAA rating, Labor would be to blame - a charge the opposition in turn laid at the government's feet.
