"The party room wants this government, this Prime Minister to succeed. That's what I want and that's what I'm doing my best to bring about.said

Mr Abbott also made another push ahead of this weekend's meeting the NSW Liberal Party for a rule change to enable the rank and file members to help preselect candidates, as happens in other states.

Mr Abbott has the support of Mr Turnbull and NSW Premier Mike Baird to change the current rules he feels almost cost the Coalition the last election.

"As a general principle, it is absolutely vital that we have a larger and more representative Liberal Party in NSW. The biggest state in Australia, the state where unfortunately the government almost lost the election back in July," he said.

"So this is a very important part of maximising our chance of winning both the next State and the next Federal election.

"This matters because the more vigorous and dynamic a political party is, the better our democracy is and the more members you've got the better the pool of candidates from which to draw. This isn't just about the Liberal Party. It's about the quality of our democracy

"If we want to boost the Liberal Party's membership, it's going to help if you can say join the Liberal Party and you will have a direct personal say in the one vital function that a political party fulfils. That is to choose decent sensible candidates for Parliament.

"If we don't give our rank and file members this responsibility, it's very hard to see why they'd want to join if they're only joining to hand out on polling day and to turn up at fundraisers, it's a very serious disincentive to be a NSW Liberal."


Mr Abbott also declined to be drawn on who he would like to win the US election.

He said recent released comments by Donald Trump about women were "absolutely reprehensible" but it's not a good look for former Australian politicians, former Australian prime ministers to be buying in to elections overseas.

"We should have the best possible relations with the American President and that's why I think we should try to avoid offering a gratuitous commentary.

"The smutty stuff that came out last week is absolutely reprehensible but in the end, the leader of America, the President of the US, is the leader of the free world and whoever that person is, the Australian Government needs to work very closely with him or her."