Abbott: ‘Turnbull set the Newspoll test’

Tony Abbott says the PM will have to explain why the Newspoll test shouldn’t apply to him if he reaches 30 losses next month.

Tony Abbott in parliament last week. Picture: Kym Smith

Tony Abbott says it was Malcolm Turnbull who set the test of 30 Newspoll failures in order to roll him as prime minister, and Mr Turnbull will have to explain why that test shouldn’t apply to him if he reaches 30 losses next month.

Today’s Newspoll in The Australian shows Mr Turnbull’s lead over Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister has evaporated, with the leaders now 37-35 respectively following the fallout from the Barnaby Joyce scandal.

The Coalition trails Labor 53-47 in Mr Turnbull’s 28th consecutive two-party preferred Newspoll loss, putting the government on track to reach the ignominious milestone of 30 losses on April 2.

Mr Abbott conceded that Mr Joyce’s decision to revive interest in his personal life yesterday had not been helpful.

As The Australian reports today, Mr Joyce told Nationals officials three months ago he did not believe he was the father of his partner Vikki Campion’s child because he was travelling overseas at the suspected time of conception.

“Barnaby certainly had a pretty messy time of things,” Mr Abbott told 2GB.

“I don’t know that it serves much purpose for us all to dwell on it, and I think the less said the better now. I think it’s all been said and we should all now just get on with living, that’s what I think, living and in the case of politicians doing our jobs.

Asked whether his jaw had dropped when he heard of Mr Joyce’s comments in Fairfax publications yesterday, Mr Abbott said: “I think that was a pretty common reaction and I shared the common reaction.”

Mr Abbott said he had never made opinion polls the “be-all and the end-all”.

“I never turned the polls into the ultimate test of leadership. It was someone else who did that,” he said.

The former prime minister said Mr Turnbull’s plotting against him started well before Newspoll number 29 or 30 of Mr Abbott’s leadership.

“I think I said on your program a long time ago that Malcolm didn’t stay in the parliament to be someone else’s minister, and I think that’s the case, but look, it was the Prime Minister who set this test, and I guess if he fails this test it’ll be the Prime Minister who will have to explain why the test was right for one and not right for the other. It’ll be up to him to tell us all why the test doesn’t apply in his case,” Mr Abbott said.

Malcolm Turnbull during the announcement of the Western Sydney City Deal yesterday. Picture: AAP

He suggested the federal Coalition could learn from Liberal Premier Will Hodgman’s success in the Tasmanian election over the weekend.

“What we saw in Tasmania over the weekend was a good, solid Liberal government that got returned,” Mr Abbott said.

“They certainly had their ups and downs in the polls, a few months ago they weren’t travelling very well at all, what that suggests to me is that if you get the basics right, polls will go up and down but you can certainly win elections.

“In the case of the federal government, the basics are getting taxes down, getting spending down, making it easier for people to do business, trying to ensure that our community is both safe and prosperous and I guess the two things that I’ve been banging on about over the last 12 months are so are first of all we’ve got to take the upward pressure off power prices, and the greatest symbol we could give as a nation that we are serious about affordable, reliable power would be getting on and building a new coal-fired power station, a new low-emissions coal-fired power station.

“The other thing that we should be doing, particularly given that the states are pretty slow at building infrastructure and getting land released is scaling back immigration because at the moment very, very high immigration is putting downward pressure on wages and it’s putting upward pressure on housing prices, and if we want our wages up and we want housing to be more affordable, a very substantial scaling back of immigration will certainly help.”