Tony Abbott has challenged Malcolm Turnbull to explain why he should keep his job if the Coalition loses 30 Newspolls under his leadership.

Key points: Tony Abbott says Malcolm Turnbull set the Newspoll test so must explain himself if he fails it

Tony Abbott says Malcolm Turnbull set the Newspoll test so must explain himself if he fails it Mr Turnbull has already started trying to manage the political damage caused by the looming deadline

Mr Turnbull has already started trying to manage the political damage caused by the looming deadline Mr Abbott has continued to argue for lower immigration despite Cabinet ministers saying he is wrong

The latest Newspoll in the Australian newspaper shows Mr Turnbull's Government has been behind Labor for 28 consecutive polls.

Mr Turnbull made Mr Abbott's loss of 30 consecutive Newspolls one of the reasons for his challenge in September 2015.

"We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row, it is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott's leadership," Mr Turnbull said when he set out his reasons for asking the Liberal Party to replace Mr Abbott.

Many in the Coalition fear the trend will continue and Mr Turnbull will also lose 30 consecutive Newspolls.

Mr Abbott today said it was Mr Turnbull who set the test, "and I guess if he fails the test it will be the Prime Minister who will have to explain why the test was right for one and not right for the other".

"It will be up to him to tell us all why the test doesn't apply in his case," Mr Abbott told Sydney radio 2GB.

"I never made the polls the be-all and the end-all, I never turned the polls into the ultimate test of leadership, it was someone else who did that."

As the poll loss deadline was looming late last year, Mr Turnbull said he wished he did not make the specific reference to polls.

"I do regret having said it only because it allowed people to focus on that, rather than substantive reasons," Mr Turnbull told the Daily Telegraph.

He highlighted he had also justified the challenge by referring to economic leadership and the lack of Cabinet-style governance.

Mr Abbott today repeated his view that Mr Turnbull's challenge had been long-planned.

"I think I said on your program a long time ago that Malcolm did not stay in the Parliament to be someone else's minister and I think that is the case," Mr Abbott said during his regular interview on 2GB.

Abbott's comments follow migration spat with front bench

The former PM was recently in a spat with Cabinet ministers, including Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Treasurer Scott Morrison, over his view that immigration levels should be cut.

Despite his colleagues slapping him down, Mr Abbott has continued to make the case for lower immigration.

"At the moment, very, very high immigration is putting downward pressure on wages and it is putting upward pressure on housing prices," he said.

"If we want our wages up, we want housing to be more affordable, a very substantial scaling back of immigration will certainly help."

Today the Grattan Institute think tank cited rapid migration as one of the factors pushing up home prices.

Mr Abbott called it an extraordinary challenge to build the facilities required for the growing population.

"We all know how hard it is to get anything built, given the rules, the regulations, the protest that invariably goes with building things, the best thing we can do at the federal level is scale back the level of immigration, not forever but certainly until infrastructure, housing starts and integration can catch up."