TONY Abbott says he thinks Donald Trump’s policies were “reasonable enough” and the Republican presidential candidate’s supporters are not “deplorables”.

In an interview on Sky News, Mr Abbott defended Mr Trump and said his voters simply wanted change and were not the “deplorables” that Hillary Clinton has described them as.

“The vast majority of Trump supporters are not deplorables, they really aren’t,” he told conservative commentator Paul Murray.

“They are decent people who want to see change inside their country and that’s fair enough.”

The former prime minister defended Mr Trump’s policies, which include building a wall between Mexico and stopping migrants from entering the US, as reasonable.

“Many of the Trump positions are reasonable enough,” he said.

But Mr Abbott could not support comments made by Mr Trump in tapes where he was heard bragging he could get away with grabbing women by the p***y, which has prompted a surge in Ms Clinton’s polling numbers.

“The tapes that have been playing over the last few days are gross, gross beyond belief and I think they are completely indefensible,” Mr Abbott.

Despite this, Mr Abbott said a motion passed in the NSW upper house condemning them was an “exercise in moral vanity”.