Phillip Coorey

If Abbott sticks to the sort of bread and butter stuff of economic management and migration levels and things that are sort of a general concern...

It wouldn't be too bad.

If he starts wading into the culture wars and transgender issues, then that very scenario you outlined will come into play.

Well, he's never really gone away, Chris, to be honest.

I mean, Tony Abbott, as we know, was the Prime Minister until 2015, but is somewhat of a force of nature around the Liberal Party.

Now, he lost his seat in 2019 to Zali Stegall.

That was really the beginning of the Teal Movement before we called it the Teal Movement.

She was the sort of pioneer, if you like, of what came three years later.

So he's been... Tony's had ants in his pants ever since.

You know, his sense of unfulfillment, if you like, he's...

He's very passionate about the Liberal Party.

You know, he's a modern day crusader, if you like.

And he's been watching, as everyone else in the Liberal Party, watching the party sort of atrophy over the last few years.

And especially, you know, they've had two terrible elections in a row.

They've gone from the default party of government since World War II to a third party.

And he reckons he knows how to fix it.

And so he stuck his hand up.

for the position of party president.

So it's not the same as coming back into parliament, which he wanted to do, and there was a fair bit of resistance to that, but it gives him a platform.

So the party president, it's a non-paid role.