Via the AFR:
With both major parties agreed that Labor is battling to win from the Coalition the 19 seats it needs to form government, and even faces losing a handful of its own, speculation is rising in the Coalition about Mr Turnbull’s management of the party with a reduced majority.
Mr Abbott has said publicly he does not expect Mr Turnbull to offer him a ministry and he is not likely to ask for one . But colleagues of the former prime minster say he will take one if offered, preferably Defence, which is currently held by Marise Payne, the first female to hold the job.
“It would be a worthy role for a former prime minister,” said a source who backs the idea.
…One leading conservative cautioned that Mr Turnbull would be wise to make a significant bridge-building gesture after the election. If he overlooked Mr Abbott, he should at least earmark for promotion other up and coming conservatives such as ACT Senator Zed Seselja ,Victorian MP Michael Sukkar “and others of that ilk”.
“I think he’s going to have to,” the MP said.
Having salted the earth around much reform policy in the name of placating the Abbott troglodytes, the one legacy still available to Malcolm Turnbull, if he is not a complete fraud, is to reform his own party by dragging it out of the loon pond into which it has sunk. If he fails on that he will have failed on everything.
Abbott should get nothing and nor should his allies.
