Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos has refused to rule out a return to power for Tony Abbott.
On the ABC's Q&A; on Monday night, Mr Sinodinos – a key confidant of Malcolm Turnbull – said "bitter experience" had taught him that anything can happen.
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Q&A;: Sinodinos won't rule out Abbott comeback
Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos has refused to rule out former prime minister Tony Abbott returning to power. Vision courtesy ABC.
"At the end of the day [politics] is about being pragmatic, and governing for as many people as we can, and that's what I think Turnbull is fundamentally about," Mr Sinodinos said.
"Do I think we'll ever go back to Tony? In politics, I've learnt through bitter experience, you never rule anything in or out."
He said that the Liberal party was moving on to the younger generation, and he "wouldn't put money" on Mr Abbott's return.
"But I'm always careful in these things," Mr Sinodinos said. "Because in life, I've learnt, in politics, it's the thing you least expect that can come back."
Leadership speculation has swirled in recent weeks after senior Liberals said Mr Abbott had a "good chance" of returning to the top job.
However, Mr Abbott said last week that he is "not expecting a vacancy any time soon".
In a program that also focused on how politicians interact with the media, Chris Mitchell – the former editor in chief of News Corp's The Australian – spoke about his interactions with Kevin Rudd.
Mr Mitchell said Mr Rudd, who was then prime minister, contacted him to see which industrial relations reforms his newspaper would support ahead of formulating his policy on the issue.
"I'd never seen anything like it," Mr Mitchell said. "I took it at face value. He was coming over to visit me that weekend, so I called in [senior journalists] Paul Kelly and Brad Norrington, and we had a bit of a chin wag about particularly personal contracts, individual contracts. That's what I told him on the Sunday."
Asked if his suggestion ended up in policy, Mr Mitchell responded: "Yep. It did, yeah."
"I was very surprised that he asked," Mr Mitchell said. "It's never happened since and it never happened before."
Host Tony Jones asked deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek, who was also on the panel, if taking counsel from newspaper editors was appropriate.
"The way we decide policy is through our national conferences and through our shadow ministers and our shadow cabinet processes," she said.
"It's an irregular way of approaching it."
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