Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull like Instagram account campaigning to unseat Tony Abbott

The Instagram account of a campaign aiming to unseat former PM Tony Abbott is being followed by Malcolm Turnbull.

From left to right: Tony Abbott, Layne Beachley and Malcolm Turnbull.

The Instagram account of a campaign aiming to unseat former PM Tony Abbott is being followed by Malcolm Turnbull as well as his wife Lucy and son Alex.

Vote Tony Out is one of several grassroots groups in the Warringah electorate campaigning to unseat Mr Abbott.

The Instagram account launched on Sunday with seven-times world surfing champion Layne Beachley publicly supporting the campaign and has gained almost 400 followers at the time of writing.

Mr Turnbull, who rolled Mr Abbott before he himself was rolled by Peter Dutton whose bungled coup delivered the leadership to Scott Morrison, is following Vote Tony Out from his verified Instagram account — the same account he used while serving as PM.

The account is also followed by his wife Lucy Turnbull as well as his outspoken son Alex who has previously used Twitter to support rival of the Liberal Party.

Vote Tony Out is run by Mark Kelly, who runs a surf product distribution business, and is also selling T Shirts, buttons and stickers emblazoned with Vote Tony Out.

He said Mr Abbott had “annoyed” a lot of members of the Warringah community.

“There’s a lot of different people who are quite annoyed at Tony, I’ve seen what other people are doing [and] I think it’s fantastic.” he said.

For Mr Kelly, Mr Abbott’s refusal to vote yes for same-sex marriage last year was the final straw.

“The main thing, at the end of the day, was when 75 per cent of his electorate voted Yes for gay marriage and he abstained on a conscious vote.” he said.

“Our electorate spoke pretty loudly then and he chose to ignore them.

“If he can’t stand up and represent the people of Warringah then he shouldn’t be a representative of those people.”

The northern beaches seat of Warringah has always been held by the Liberal Party.

The former PM suffered a 3.7 per cent swing against him on a two party preferred basis at the 2016 federal election with Greens candidate Clara Williams Roldan receiving 38.4 per cent of the vote.

Warringah Voices president Louise Hislop said the community had been inspired by Dr Kerryn Phelps’ win in Mr Turnbull’s former seat of Wentworth.

“I think it’s just made people realise that change is possible.” she said.

“It’s just we’re a fairly laid back lot and people are just waking up to the fact that we’re represented poorly and they can see we have fairly similar socio-economic profile to Wentworth.”

Voices for Warringah are following a similar model to Voices for Indi, which helped give former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella the boot in 2014.

The tactics involve holding conversations around kitchen tables to find out what issues the community cares about.

“We’re holding many events trying to broaden the conversations we have about the sort of policies that we want to use to create the picture we want.”

Ms Hislop said the issues of climate change, renewable energy, kids on Nauru, refugees and the ABC were among the most cared about in Mr Abbott’s electorate.

Mr Abbott declined to comment while Mr Turnbull’s office has not responded to The Australian’s request.