Turnbull won't be 'provoked' by Abbott
Furious conservatives have rounded on Tony Abbott, branding him a destructive hypocrite and vowing he will never again lead the Liberal Party.
Mr Abbott claimed on Friday he was not after the leadership and that he supported Malcolm Turnbull. But his latest outburst on Thursday night, in which he accused the government of being Labor lite and said it would lose the election unless it shifted to the right, has angered all but his few closest friends.
Sources suspected Mr Abbott may be trying to blow up the government to facilitate a takeover by Peter Dutton.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, one of the Coalition's leading conservatives and who crunched Mr Abbott's numbers during the 2015 leadership coup, was scathing as he backed Mr Turnbull.
"I cannot see any scenario in which there is a return of Tony Abbott to the leadership of the Liberal Party," he said.
"I find it sad. I am just saddened by what self-evidently is his decision to provide more and more destructive commentary. He is not helping our cause.
"He is not helping our country. He is not helping himself. Much of what he says is either wrong or inconsistent with what he did when he was Prime Minister."
In an inflammatory speech and TV appearance on Thursday night, Mr Abbott outlined a policy manifesto that included cutting immigration to ease housing prices, abolishing the Renewable Energy Target, or RET, and backing away from plans to subsidise coal-fired power.
He even took issue with Mr Turnbull choosing to live at home while in Sydney, rather than Kirribilli House.
Mr Turnbull concurred with Senator Cormann, accusing Mr Abbott of wilfully destabilising the government.
"He knows exactly what he's doing and so do his colleagues," he said.
He pointed out that Mr Abbott as prime minster had talked a big game but delivered very little. It was the Turnbull government that passed legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to establish a Registered Organisations Commission.
"We are acting and we are getting things done which we couldn't, wouldn't or didn't get done in the last Parliament," he said.
"I haven't talked about reintroducing the rule of law to the building sector, I've done it.
"I've had the courage, not to give speeches, but to act."
He added that Mr Abbott had talked about clamping down on MP's entitlements, including ending the lifetime gold pass, but it was the Turnbull government that acted.
One senior conservative, who declined to be named, said the conservatives would never take Mr Abbott back as leader, saying he had failed to deliver on the conservative cause when he was prime minister.
The MP noted that Mr Abbott now was calling for the abolition of the Human Rights Commission yet, as leader, he squibbed on doing anything about section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.
If Mr Turnbull were to be "hit by a bus", Peter Dutton would be the conservatives' choice as replacement because Treasurer Scott Morrison was still on the nose over the leadership coup.
Mr Abbott's call to abolish the RET caused great consternation. One source pointed out that when Mr Abbott's government reduced the RET from 28 per cent to 23 per cent, conservatives including Senator Cormann and Mr Dutton argued it be scrapped altogether.
"Abbott resisted, he argued there needed to be a compromise. Now he's arguing to scrap it, he's a hypocrite," said one witness to the cabinet debate.
