Former prime minister Tony Abbott has called on the Coalition to redirect its focus to defeating Labor, as Opposition Leader Sussan Ley suffered a huge slump in her approval rating in a recent poll following a month of instability, leaks, resignations and sackings engulfing the Liberal Party.

Asked on Nine’s Today show about the troubles plaguing his former party, Abbott said a lesson he had learned as opposition leader was “to be a clear and strong contrast to the government of the day”.

His comments follow Resolve Political Monitor’s polling published by this masthead on Sunday which showed Ley’s popularity dropping by 14 percentage points in the past month, as Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and West Australian MP Andrew Hastie exited the front bench after clashing with Ley on th

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