Tony Abbott has warned the Turnbull government not to over-react to the Pauline Hanson factor or be governed by opinion polls.
The former prime minister expects Malcolm Turnbull to lead the coalition to the next election and won't be drawn as to whether he should be in cabinet or whether he himself wants to return to the top job.
But he says Mr Turnbull must lead a strong centre-right party or fringe parties will come to the fore, like Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party.
"What the government needs to do is not to overact to Hanson but to get on with the job of being a strong and sensible centre-right government," Mr Abbott told a hour-long, wide-ranging interview on Sky News on Sunday.
"This is exactly what John Howard did after the 1998 election when One Nation got a very strong vote."
He also stressed the government must not get obsessed by opinion polls, an issue that triggered Mr Turnbull's successful challenge for the prime ministership last year,
Mr Abbott said you only had to look as UK election last year, and Brexit and the US election this year not to put faith in polls.
"If you were good government, polls would look after themselves," he said.
He is also pleased the government is no longer talking about 'innovation and agility'.
"That frankly loses people, we have got to talk about the issues that they understand," Mr Abbott said.
"We have got to put it in terms of their interests."
But Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said innovation and agility is a very important part of the government's economic plan.
"Obviously, for an open trading economy like Australia it is critically important that we're agile and innovative and always able to be as competitive as we possibly can be internationally," he told ABC television.
