"My thinking back in September last year was that we should seek a mandate for serious savings," he said. "That we should have another look at the measures that were blocked in the Senate and very overtly and explicitly and right up front go to the people and say 'If we are going to have long term budget responsibility we need to embrace these difficult but necessary decisions'." All Coalition MPs, from the newest backbenchers to the most senior ministers, do privately fear just this fate. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Fairfax Media has reported that the Coalition this year relied on about $13 billion of so-called "zombie" measures from the first and second Abbott budgets to prop up the budget, including $600 million from planned cuts to Family Tax Benefits, $258 million from maternity leave scheme changes and $139 million from increasing co-payments and changing the safety net for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. An excerpt of Mr Jones' interview aired on Sunrise on Saturday morning. The full interview will be broadcast on election night, before polling booths close at 6pm. It has been widely agreed Labor would have won the election against an Abbott-led Coalition government.

After he was ousted, Mr Abbott publicly defended his record in the top job, and argued he would have won the election if he stayed leader, noting Mr Turnbull had not changed his policies. But he has kept a relatively low-profile during the eight-week election campaign and appeared at the Liberal Party's official campaign launch last weekend to support his former rival. Asked what it felt like to go from prime minister to an "anonymous figure", Mr Abbott said: "It's not about me". "Egomaniacs normally get found out very quickly in this business and that's as it should be," he said. Mr Abbott likened the experience of being dumped as leader to being dropped from first to second grade in a football team. "You've just got to accept the selector's verdict, play as well as you can and see what the future holds." "Every political career ends. And most political careers end in disappointment, one way or another. John Howard is now lauded as the greatest living Liberal. But that's not how people felt on the night of the election in 2007 when he lost his seat."