Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has stepped in to defend Tony Abbott, calling on his Liberal Party colleagues to show respect to the former prime minister.
Mr Abbott has made a series of intervention in policy and political debates in recent months, including the release of a five-point plan to help the Coalition win the next election and stop Opposition Leader Bill Shorten from winning power.
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Dutton: we 'should show due respect' to Abbott
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has stepped in to defend Tony Abbott, calling on his Liberal Party colleagues to show respect to the former prime minister. Vision: ABC TV/Insiders.
Last week he lashed the "sneaky, underhanded" leaking of polling data which showed he may have lost his own seat of Warringah in the 2016 election, while he also revealed he had a "man-to-man" chat with Mathias Cormann in February after the Finance Minister called Mr Abbott's interventions "destructive" and "sad".
But on Sunday, Mr Dutton – a leading member of the party's conservative wing who is seen as a future leader of the Liberal Party – praised the former prime minister's critique of Labor.
![Former prime minister Tony Abbott.](/web/20170424061439im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/m/9/6/4/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvqihi.png/1492987545041.jpg)
The Immigration Minister said he did not support public criticism of the Turnbull government but "if he's [Mr Abbott] saying that Bill Shorten would be a disastrous Prime Minister for this country, I do applaud him".
"My view is that we have a great deal of respect for the former leaders ... the Labor Party has the same respect towards any former leaders including Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd in recent times. It is a two-way process where former leaders also need to show respect to the current leader and the current party and that is my approach," he told the ABC's Insiders program.
"I don't support criticisms [of the Turnbull government] where they're not constructive and I want us, as a party, to show the respect that is due to Tony Abbott as a former leader and prime minister."
Mr Dutton would not be drawn on whether Mr Abbott should be restored to the cabinet by Mr Turnbull, arguing that was a matter for the prime minister.
![Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has stepped in to defend Tony Abbott.](/web/20170424061439im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/o/a/t/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvqihi.png/1492987545041.jpg)
Liberal MPs are increasingly frustrated with Mr Abbott's public commentary as they believe it has distracted from the Turnbull government's messages and halting attempts to revive its standing in the polls.
Backbench MP Warren Entsch last week called on Mr Abbott to quit the parliament as he had not honoured the "no wrecking, no sniping and no undermining" promise he made when he lost the prime ministership.
He also ducked questions about whether it was part of his plan to be prime minister himself one day.
"It's part of my plan to be a good part and a constructive part and a positive part, I hope, of Malcolm Turnbull's prime ministership, which I hope goes for a long time," he said.
"There are 150 members in the lower house of Parliament, in the House of Representatives. There's one that's Prime Minister and there's 149 that want to be so let's support the leader."
"I'm just one of a humble 149. The point that I made is that I was rock solid loyal to Tony Abbott. I'm rock solid loyal to Malcolm Turnbull and I was to John Howard and Brendan Nelson and that's my approach into the future."
Separately, Mr Abbott dismissed a report in News Corp papers that he was set enter the boxing ring and fight Labor senator Anthony Chisholm as a curtain raiser to the Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn fight in Brisbane in July.
It is not clear why either politician would be willing to participate in the mooted boxing match, and they have no known grudge against each other.
"Story about me re-entering the ring is fake news. Utter rubbish. Media should be ashamed of themselves," Mr Abbott tweeted on Sunday.