Abbott, widely regarded as the incumbent in the “best opposition leader” stakes, says Dutton now has a 50/50 chance of taking out Labor after one term in the next federal election.

“I will take the gold medal from around my own neck and hand it to Peter Dutton,” he says. “I think Peter Dutton has the potential to be John Howard Mark II.’’

Abbott’s abdication from the throne takes place at Brisbane’s Breakfast Creek Hotel as he devours a medium-rare porterhouse steak, baked potato and salad.

“How do you do that?’’ I ask. “Like, stay slim and eat like that?’’

“I exercise,’’ he says, gazing steadily at my more nutritionally enhanced frame. “I was up early this morning here in Brisbane doing an hour on the exercise bike.’’

Surfing, firefighting, maintaining his Tour de France approach to bicycle riding, becoming a Visiting Fellow for Victor Orban’s Danube Institute in Budapest, Abbott, the former prime minister, Rhodes scholar and parliamentary head kicker, appears light years removed from retirement.

At 66 he doesn’t entirely rule out returning to politics after being unceremoniously turfed out of Warringah in 2019 after one-quarter of a century in the Sydney seat.

“As a former prime minister, who is inevitably asked to make speeches and write articles, you are never really out of politics,’’ he says.

“The only difference is, are you in parliament or out of parliament?

“There is a part of me that would love to be still in it.

“But I don’t want to make any of my successors’ lives more complicated.

“And, were I ever to be back, inevitably I would complicate their lives.’’

What he won’t be complicating is the life of his friend Peter Dutton, whom he firmly believes is in the midst of an inexorable rise to the top job.

“I could not win in one term,’’ he says, referring to his attempt to dislodge the Labor government over two terms before succeeding in 2013.’

“I think he (Dutton) has a 50/50 chance of winning in the first term.’’

Dutton has a range of policies which Abbott believes will win over the Australian electorate, but it was Dutton’s dramatic shift to nuclear power which Abbott thinks sealed the deal, putting him firmly on the path to the Lodge.

“I think that Dutts proved with his courageous opposition to the Voice that he knows what he is against,’’ Abbott says.

”And I think he is now proving with his courageous support for nuclear that he knows what he is for.’’

Other key winners in the policy forum are Dutton’s commitment to the previous Coalition government’s “superannuation for homes’’ scheme as well as the commitment to substantially reduce immigration from the current figure of over half a million a year to 160,000 a year.

Dutton has also flagged an intention to repeal a lot of Labor work on workplace relations, which Abbott believes will win votes, but any attempt to roll back environmental legislation, which Abbott believes has too long frustrated nation-building projects, is going to be a tougher job.

Here Abbott is prepared to be a little self critical.

Those protests which regularly erupt around any proposed mine projects have at least some of their genesis in legislation brought in during Abbott and Dutton’s own time in power during the Howard years.

“The Howard government introduced a lot of legislation,’’ Abbott says. “But sometimes, through, I think, inattentive ministers and overzealous bureaucrats, and, occasionally, just to get legislation through the Senate, they put stuff in which has turned out to be quite a problem.’’

One of those “problems’’ passed under the Howard administration was the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Inside the Act is a clause which helped create the lawfare that we now see sabotaging every major development program.’’

“Normally to bring an action, you have to have an interest and, at law, an interest normally means a financial interest,’’ Abbott explains.

Under the 1999 Act, the definition of an interest was changed to allow anyone with an “interest’’ whether political or philosophical, to legally oppose the development, allowing a Sydney environment centre to bring an action against a Queensland mine.

How to unscramble that egg is not an easy task, according to Abbott, He knows because he tried it when he was prime minister.

Life was simpler at Oxford.

The Rhodes scholar is more than happy to leave the cares of the political world behind him and return to the dreaming spires where he spent three years in 1981-83.

“I loved my time at Oxford,’’ he recalls fondly.

The English class system didn’t bother him.

“As an Australian, you are outside those English class structures, and that gives you access everywhere.’’

The Rhodes Foundation gave him a small stipend, propped up by a bit more from the NSW government, and it was enough for Abbott to have the time of his life.

“The Oxford tutorial system was a wonderful intellectual preparation for politics, journalism and law,’’ he says. “Because you have got to assimilate the best that has been thought and said on important topics, and then produce an essay, in your own words, that has a point, that you can defend to someone who is a global expert in the topic.’’

Naturally he tried to bluff them.

One tutor, a world expert on Wittgenstein philosophy, once stopped him mid-sentence and asked him to flesh out a point, leaving Abbott, who had no real idea of what he was talking about, stumped. ”I looked at him like a goldfish and I could see him thinking “aha! they’ve sent us another sportsman from the colonies.’’

But he ended up befriending him, as he did many others in that exalted world, and has maintained the friendship across the decades.

He’s also still got a lot of friends in politics, including retired LNP senator Ron Boswell who actually arranged the lunch, and who has recently written a book which Abbott reviewed in Quadrant.

“Bozzie’’, as he is affectionately known, makes the point in his book that politicians need their generous superannuation scheme reinstated, or at least be provided with a more lucrative alternative to what now exists.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham was a prime mover in disbanding the generous parliamentary super scheme in 2003, but John Howard agreed to get rid of it.

Abbott thinks Howard made a mistake.

“I know it is not a popular position but the parliamentary pension was one of those things that gave able people the reassurance that they would not be high and dry if their public life was, for whatever reason, cut short.’’

Abbott fears cabinet ministers could ingratiate themselves with industry in order to secure post-political employment.

“My fear, now that the parliamentary pension is gone – I mean Albo is one of the few survivors, he’ll get it, Dutton will get it because he came in in 2001 when the pension was still operational – but my fear is that ministers could start making decisions on the basis of their future employment,’’ he says.

“I don’t know whether it should be there for backbenchers, but certainly for ministers I believe there should be a parliamentary pension.’’

Lunch finished, Abbott gives it a nine.

Bozzie normally takes him to the Norman Hotel for a steak, and he doesn’t want to offend so he declares the Brekky Creek at least equal to the Norman.

Then a lady, expressing apologies for the intrusion, asks for a pic on her phone. Abbott smiles warmly at her and the camera, and is gone.