There is "no appetite" inside the Liberal Party to reinstall Tony Abbott as leader to reverse the Coalition's ongoing slump in opinion polls, according to former prime minister John Howard.

Labor has topped the Coalition in every Newspoll since September last year, doing nothing to relieve Malcolm Turnbull of lingering questions over his leadership.

"I don't think there is any appetite in the Liberal party for another leadership change," Howard said on last night's 7.30 on ABC.

Howard said he had great respect for Abbott, but he could see no way back for the former Liberal leader who lost a 2015 leadership spill to Turnbull.

"I just want to see everybody making a contribution," he said.

Howard rejected the idea that the Coalition had moved away from its core principles and delivered a Labor-lite budget. Treasurer Scott Morrison was accused by the conservative right of increasing taxes instead of cutting spending.

Howard told host Leigh Sales that the Coalition had "been forced very reluctantly to a number of revenue measures it would otherwise not have entertained".

He disagreed with Sales that Labor was setting the political agenda, despite the Coalition making noticeable moves in traditional centre-left issues such as the $6.2 billion banking levy, Gonski, industrial relations and national disability insurance scheme.

"Australia has always had a very big middle class," he said.

"There are fewer people who are permanently welded on to either the Labor Party on the centre left or the Coalition on the centre right.