Tony Abbott sniffs the wind and muzzles his front bench

LAST week the government made an announcement on the National Broadband Network: a deal was struck whereby NBN Co would pay Telstra $11 billion for access to its fixed line network.

Sounds like the kind of story an opposition communications spokesman should comment on, right? Not if you are Tony O'Leary, the man charged with running the opposition's media strategy. And not if you are an overly paranoid Tony Abbott, concerned about what former leader and opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull may say or do.

The ABC's flagship Sunday morning political program Insiders invited Turnbull on last weekend, given the topicality of his portfolio. So did Australian Agenda on Sky News (disclaimer: which I host). Unfortunately for Barrie Cassidy and me, and the hundreds of thousands of Australians who tune in to Sunday morning television to hear what their political leaders have to say in long-form interviews, Abbott's office told Turnbull that he was not allowed to appear.

This weekend the same thing happened. Insiders and Australian Agenda invited Turnbull on the programs, the leader's office told him that he was not allowed to appear, even though in both weeks no other Liberal MPs were doing Sunday morning TV.

So much for Abbott charging Turnbull with "entirely demolishing" (Abbott's language) the NBN: he won't even let him talk freely about it when it is making news. When Abbott appointed Turnbull to the communications portfolio he declared he wanted him to hold the government "ferociously to account". That's hard to do when you are being told not to appear in the media.

And so much for the backgrounding (to me and others) that constantly comes out of Abbott's office that Turnbull isn't a team player or doesn't do enough media about his portfolio. Despite being a former leader, which, according to John Howard, gives him wide rights to engage in public debate, Turnbull did what he was told and declined the interview requests, both times, both weeks.

"I have to say it's not the sort of courtesy Tony ever gave to Malcolm when he was leader," a Liberal frontbencher noted. Indeed Abbott was one of a dozen shadow ministers who resigned publicly to bring down Turnbull's leadership in late 2009. The only difference with other shadows was that they did so over a principled opposition to Turnbull's support for Labor's emissions trading scheme. In contrast, Abbott had previously penned an opinion piece in favour of the Turnbull position: he simply read the changing political winds that swept him into the leadership and therefore changed his mind.

What does all this say about dysfunction within Coalition ranks? It won't let one of its senior shadow ministers do serious media in a fortnight when his portfolio is up in lights. This isn't the first time such muzzling has happened. A month ago, the deputy leader no less, Julie Bishop, was told by the leader's office (read O'Leary) that she couldn't appear on Meet the Press on the Ten Network. Only last week Turnbull finally got his first question for the year in question time.

Abbott is constantly telling the partyroom to avoid doing unnecessary media, the hypocrisy of which irritates MPs who remember how out there Abbott was as a shadow minister during Turnbull and Brendan Nelson's stints as leader.

During the week, Abbott responded to reports about Peter Reith's public criticisms over industrial relations timidity within the Coalition by noting that the Liberal Party wasn't a Stalinist regime and people were free to speak out. Just not shadow ministers and deputy leaders, it would seem.

If Abbott is worried Turnbull will go "off message", he should have the courage to fire him from shadow cabinet rather than muzzle him.

But the problem with that strategy is, if it were to be applied consistently, other Liberals' heads could be on the chopping block, too. Eric Abetz, Andrew Robb and Joe Hockey, for example, all disagree with Abbott's weak IR position. This is especially awkward for Abetz, given he is opposition spokesman on IR.

The small-target strategy in politics is not new. Oppositions regularly adopt the approach. But if they want an early election, as Abbott constantly spruiks for in the present political environment, and if they want to be viewed as an alternative government, they need to start acting like one. Hiding from view doesn't cut it.

Despite the polling dominance by the Coalition at the moment, there are increasing ripples of concern -- among one-time Abbott loyalists, no less -- that he and his office aren't functioning as well as they should. O'Leary risks a media and community backlash because of the small-target approach he is running, as Kim Beazley did ahead of the 2001 election.

Chief of staff Peta Credlin continues to advise Abbott to pursue gimmicks that backfire, such as the ill-fated carbon tax plebiscite. And just last week we had a situation where a senior former Howard government minister was left humiliated when Abbott offered him support to run for the party presidency before withdrawing that support at the last minute, leaving Reith losing the ballot by a solitary vote.

Backgrounding against Abbott and his office is starting to come from some unusual sources: loyalists who have always covered for him but now worry he is risking his sizeable lead in the polls by not developing a positive policy and media strategy.

Let's pick the one policy area Abbott believes is a political winner for him: the carbon tax.

Abbott opposes the carbon tax but doesn't have the guts to put forward as an alternative what he would really like to do: nothing, because he questions the science and the value of a small nation acting when the rest of the

world won't.

So instead, despite being the leader of the Liberal Party, he backs inefficient and expensive direct action as an alternative way of achieving a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, all the while trying to conveniently forget this is a bipartisan target.

The Coalition is well ahead in the polls, Julia Gillard is deeply unpopular and for the first Abbott has moved into the lead as preferred prime minister. But the next election may still be more than two years away, enough time for a small-target strategy to become too clever by half. I, for one, am already firmly of that opinion.

Peter van Onselen is a Winthrop professor at the University of Western Australia.