Tony Abbott has laid out a five-point plan for the Coalition to have a chance at the "winnable" next election, including cutting back immigration and scrapping the Human Rights Commission.
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In a major speech in Sydney at the launch of a new book, Making Australia Right, on Thursday evening, Mr Abbott gave the clearest signal yet he believed the Turnbull government is failing to cut through with voters, and that the contest of ideas - and for the soul of the modern Liberal Party - between the current and former prime minister has a long way to run.
Mr Abbott noted nearly 40 per cent of Australians didn't vote for the Coalition or Labor in the 2016 election: "It's easy to see why".
In a sign a return to the leadership was on his radar, Mr Abbott set out ideas on how to take the fight to Labor and win back Coalition voters thinking of defecting to Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
"In short, why not say to the people of Australia: we'll cut the RET [renewable energy target] to help with your power bills; we'll cut immigration to make housing more affordable; we'll scrap the Human Rights Commission to stop official bullying; we'll stop all new spending to end ripping off our grandkids; and we'll reform the Senate to have government, not gridlock?"
He said the next election was winnable for the Coalition, however, "our challenge is to be worth voting for. It's to win back the people who are giving up on us".
The speech contained thinly-veiled swipes at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne, and populist Senate crossbenchers who refused to back what he argued are necessary spending cuts.
He called for political parties to have a purpose and program, and said that "our politics can't be just a contest of toxic egos or someone's vanity project".
In a clear reference to the decision to award the $50 billion submarine project to French company DCNS - which will deliver a massive jobs and investment windfall to Mr Pyne's home state of South Australia - Mr Abbott said government had to "ensure that our armed forces are about protecting the country not just creating jobs in Adelaide".
The speech - and the five-point plan - will likely infuriate Turnbull supporters and progressives on the Left of politics and delight conservatives.
On housing, Mr Abbott stated "if we end the 'big is best' thinking of the federal Treasury, and scaled back immigration (at least until housing starts and infrastructure have caught up), we can take the pressure off home prices", without nominating a target.
That call to scale back immigration is likely to resonate with would-be Hanson voters, while the call to address housing affordability - a hot-button issue, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, which the Turnbull government is grappling with in the lead-up to the next budget - will resonate with people struggling to get into the housing market.
Mr Abbott did not nominate a revised target migration figure. According to the ABS, in 2014-15 net overseas migration was 168,200 people.
The former prime minister's call to scrap the Human Rights Commission and "leave protecting our liberties to the Parliament, the courts and a free press where they belong" will win favour with conservatives. The Coalition government has frequently been at loggerheads with the organisation.
He called to stop all new federal spending and reduce the power of the Senate crossbench and legislative "gridlock", by altering section 57 of the constitution via a referendum. This will allow laws that have been twice rejected by the upper house to go directly to a joint sitting, without a double dissolution election.
They are bold prescriptions the Turnbull government is unlikely to take on.
On the RET, Mr Abbott said: "We subsidise wind to make coal uneconomic so now we are proposing to subsidise coal to keep the lights on. Go figure. Wouldn't it be better to abolish subsidies for new, renewable generation and let ordinary market forces do the rest?"
The federal government has indicated the 23 per cent-by-2020 RET, set during the former prime minister's tenure, will not be altered. This is even as it has in recent months, following a series of power blackouts in South Australia, sought to wedge Labor at state and federal levels over its support for even higher renewable energy targets post-2020.
In a later interview with friend and commentator Andrew Bolt on Thursday, Mr Abbott warned Australia risked "sleepwalking into an energy policy catastrophe if we don't do better than this".
He also called on Mr Turnbull to move into Kirribilli House, rather than reside at his Point Piper mansion, to save taxpayers' money on security. "I think it would be a better look ... but in the end this is a question for him," Mr Abbott said.
In a pointed warning to the PM, he said the Coalition would "drift to defeat if we don't lift our game". It was his duty as a former party leader to ensure the government "stays on the right track", he said.
"Plainly there are some issues right now, and it's incumbent on me to raise these issues," Mr Abbott said.
