Tony Abbott blasts Turnbull’s ministers over immigration disagreement

TONY Abbott has launched a blistering attack on his Liberal Party colleagues while the Prime Minister is away, but Acting PM Mathias Cormann is not buying into it.

ACTING Prime Minister Mathias Cormann has brushed off scathing remarks from Tony Abbott this morning, saying the former PM was “entitled to his views”.

Mr Abbott took an extraordinary swipe at Malcolm Turnbull’s senior ministers today after they slapped down his call to drastically reduce Australia’s immigration levels.

In a scathing opinion piece blasting Treasurer Scott Morrison, Senator Cormann and Trade Minister Steve Ciobo, the former prime minister said: “One thing I am not going to cop is gratuitous criticism from ministers who are only in government because I led them there.”

Mr Abbott said it was Mr Turnbull’s right as prime minister to choose his leadership team but “given some of the policies of this government” he was “happy to serve on the backbench”.

He said his colleagues had gone out of their way to attack him and that he knew “more about winning elections than anyone in the parliament”.

“You’d think a government that’s lost the past 27 Newspolls might be curious about how it could lift its game,” Mr Abbott wrote in his opinion piece in The Australian today.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott says he’s not going to cop criticism from ministers “who are only in government because I led them there”. Picture: AAP

“You’d think a government that has too few ­policy differences with Labor might consider a change of ­emphasis that would make clearer the choice of who’s really on the voters’ side. “But no, ministers have gone out of their way to attack a colleague who knows more about winning elections than anyone in the parliament.”

Asked about the comments this morning, Senator Cormann said: “Tony Abbott is a former prime minister. He’s the member for Warringah. He’s entitled to his views.”

“We are entitled to our views, you know, and the Government is entitled to pursue what we believe is in Australia’s national interest, and that is really all there is to it.”

Mr Ciobo also said he did not want to get into a “tit for tat” with Mr Abbott, but stood by his remarks about Australia’s immigration levels.

Mr Abbott has been an outspoken critic of the Turnbull Government’s policies since he was ousted as prime minister by Mr Turnbull in September 2015.

But he has never directly attacked individual ministers to such a degree.

His attack today is in response to Mr Morrison, Senator Cormann and Mr Ciobo slapping down his call to cut Australia’s annual permanent immigration cap from 180,000 to 110,000.

Mr Abbott made the comments in a speech on Tuesday night in Sydney.

“Acting Prime Minister Mathias Cormann said I was wrong to criticise the experts,” Mr Abbott wrote in his editorial today.

“Actually, experts provide advice but it’s government’s job to make decisions.

“If government were required to take public-service advice, there’d be no point bothering with elections.

“One of this government’s failings is that it too often takes advice from the ‘experts’ who got us into difficulties in the first place.”

Mr Abbott went on to blast Mr Ciobo for calling his argument “lazy” and “inaccurate” because migrants had brought prosperity to Australia.

“No one denies this, Steve, but does that mean that immigration must always add a city the size of Adelaide to our population every five years,” Mr Abbott wrote.

Acting PM Mathias Cormann was in the firing line for criticising his immigration plan. Picture: Mark Cranitch

“Then there was Scott Morrison, who claimed reducing immigration had never been discussed while I was prime minister,” he said.

“This is false.

“I vehemently disagreed with the Treasury line that we couldn’t cut immigration because that would harm the budget — ­although we didn’t adjust the official target because immigration was then trending down, by almost 50,000, since Labor’s last full year.”

The Treasurer had also criticised Mr Abbott’s plan, saying it would mean a hit to the budget of up to $5 billion over four years.

Mr Abbott responded today that it was “ridiculous” to accept boosting immigration was “just budget upside”.

“Most of all, it’s wrong to have a senior minister who invents things to score a cheap point against someone on his own side,” he said.

The internal spat between Mr Abbott and the senior ministers comes as the fallout from Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s affair continues to damage the government.

Mr Joyce is now facing a sexual harassment allegation from a West Australian woman.

The Nationals leader has denied the allegation is true and has called it “spurious” and “defamatory”.