THE former prime minister Kevin Rudd has declared Tony Abbott to be ''entirely beatable'' as he likened the opposition's tactics to the same ''simple, naked lunge for political power'' that Malcolm Fraser's Liberals employed to bring down the Whitlam government in 1975.

Launching a new volume of Gough Whitlam's biography yesterday, Mr Rudd accused Mr Abbott of being ''the most extreme, right-wing leader in his party's history'' with neither the temperament nor the policies to be prime minister.

"Mr Abbott's entire program, in the tradition of his conservative predecessors, is simply driven by a campaign of delegitimisation of Labor" ... Kevin Rudd. Credit:Paul Harris

''Mr Abbott's entire program, in the tradition of his conservative predecessors, is simply driven by a campaign of delegitimisation of Labor,'' Mr Rudd said.

''Opposing everything, proposing nothing. And to do everything possible to secure government by whatever it takes.''