Tony Abbott spins it and muzzles his own men

IF Tony Abbott had his way, Malcolm Turnbull would stay silent and any question at press conferences would be deflected with spin and then quickly be forgotten.

It's called a small-target strategy, and it's a script he is following to the letter.

Abbott's office has told Turnbull for the past two weekends that he was not allowed to do morning television.

When asked directly at a press conference on Saturday about gagging the opposition communications spokesman, Abbott gave a less than direct answer.

"Look, my office wants the Coalition message to get out there in the best possible way, as you'd expect," he said, "and that's why I encourage all of my members, all of my shadow ministers to be out there spreading the message in the best possible way."

Really? So why is Turnbull treated so differently?

It turns out Channel Ten's Meet the Press has had a standing offer for Abbott to appear on the program, which has gone unanswered for months. The same goes for the ABC's 7.30.

Next week Abbott is travelling to Cape York to meet with Noel Pearson. I'm willing to bet that in that context he will finally grant the program an interview, shortening the time devoted to wide-ranging questions.

The Opposition Leader's staff have made it clear they believe it is the job of the government to frequent the Sunday morning political programs. And here was me thinking it is the role of opposition to provide scrutiny and present as an alternative government.

Abbott's strategy is starting to irritate the media and his parliamentary colleagues. Doyen of the press gallery Laurie Oakes used his Saturday column in News Limited papers to take aim at Abbott. He didn't miss.

After I wrote about Turnbull's muzzling at the weekend a long line of Liberal MPs got in touch to recount their own displeasure at being stopped from doing media appearances by Abbott's communications director Tony O'Leary.

Abbott repelled a question about Peter Reith's IR criticisms last week by pointing out that the Liberal Party is not a Stalinist regime and people are free to speak their minds.

That's not true. Reith can do so because he isn't a parliamentary underling of Abbott. If he were, O'Leary would have shut him down the same way he has Turnbull this past fortnight.