Tony Abbott's a bright man. As his former chief of staff Peta Credlin reminded us this week, he's a Rhodes Scholar, no less, who sees life in politics as his vocation.

Someone close to Malcolm Turnbull was rather less charitable.

"Tony wants to be the modern-day Billy Hughes," he said.

Whether he was referring to William Morris Hughes' extraordinary, record longevity as an MP (51 years, six months and 29 days) or Hughes' ability to be a grand disruptor of whichever party he belonged (five parties, prime minister in two, leader of five, expelled from three), he left it hanging.

But Mr Abbott has found his role.

"I can assure you, I'm in no hurry to leave public life, because we need strong, liberal, conservative voices now more than ever," he told the Institute of Public Affairs this week.

"I will do my best to be a standard-bearer for the values and the policies that have made us strong."

No-one doubts his promise to hang around, whether they are an Abbott acolyte or a Turnbull sympathiser — Mr Abbott will be in Parliament long after Mr Turnbull is gone, assuming the preselectors in Warringah continue to support Mr Abbott.

It's in what capacity Mr Abbott intends to stay in politics that everyone is wondering.

Does he really think he can come back to the leadership after Mr Turnbull's gone? Or is he simply out to kill Mr Turnbull's prime ministership out of pure vengeance?

Either way, Mr Abbott doesn't see the Government lasting beyond this term under the current PM.

'Backstreet brawler' Abbott sparking war, not peace

Sorry, this video has expired Barrie Cassidy: Abbott causing Liberals a world of pain

For a bright man, Mr Abbott is a tragic mix.

He has the burning intellect of the Jesuit scholar but the joust and instinct of a backstreet brawler.

And it's done him damage, as much as some of his colleagues share his concerns about the Turnbull team's tactic to narrow the gap with Labor on some policies.

"The next election won't be won by drawing closer to Labor," Mr Abbott told the IPA.

"The next election can only be won by drawing up new battle lines that give our people something to fight for; and the public something to hope for."

His prescription for success was typically Abbottesque: war not peace; destroy rather than appease.

He knows only one way.

And now, even when he has something interesting to say, it's inevitably seen through the prism of the Liberal leadership.

That's what happens when you spend much of your energies backbiting and undermining.

That said, Mr Abbott posited some worthy questions when he addressed the Centre for Independent Studies on Wednesday.

Tony Abbott is seemingly making moves to position himself for a post-Turnbull era. ( AAP: Mick Tsikas )

Have we as a nation, he asked, ruled out nuclear-powered submarines prematurely, and have we left our maritime defences exposed by insisting on a conventional subs that will have to be built from scratch?

And are we needlessly spending tens of billions propping up a manufacturing sector in South Australia when developing a nuclear industry in that state would be better?

Given the context of the past week, it was a provocative speech. Not just because Mr Turnbull will, in a few days, be in France visiting the company that won the $50 billion subs contract.

But as much as the speech exasperated his colleagues, because of its revisionism and varying hues of hypocrisy, it wasn't entirely devoid of self-reflection. He conceded he had been wrong to favour a Japanese-build from the start and admitted he too had "studiously avoided" asking the nuclear question.

Alas his colleagues' reception only advertised their enduring suspicion he had ulterior motives all along.

Abbott not alone in attempts to push Liberals further right

Mr Abbott's criticism that the submarine project had put "domestic job creation" above Defence capability was particularly galling to fellow Liberals who remember how this had become a political necessity for Mr Abbott when he experienced his near-death experience in the leadership spill motion of February 2015.

Malcolm Turnbull has been under pressure to remove Christopher Pyne. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

It was also interpreted as a calculated dig at Christopher Pyne, the Defence Industry Minister, who is now a top target for the former PM and his acolytes.

Mr Pyne's now infamous boast to fellow moderates last Friday night, that they were in the "winner's circle", inflamed the culture war inside the Liberal Party that has been going on since Mr Abbott was turfed out by his colleagues.

But as one young(ish) Liberal conservative MP told this correspondent, the former PM's constant tug for conservatism was pretty much in the same spirit as the crime that Mr Pyne had apologised for committing.

This MP pointed to the speech that John Howard gave to Liberals in Canberra in May on the 75th anniversary of Robert Menzies' "Forgotten People" radio address.

Sorry, this video has expired John Howard praises the Liberal Party's 'broad church'

"I'm sure that [Menzies] would very much approve of the notion that his party has been, and continues to be a broad church," Mr Howard said.

"It's the party of John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke, it's a coalition of classical liberals and conservatives and while ever it remains so, its best days can lay ahead of it."

If Mr Abbott is preparing for politics after Mr Turnbull, he's not alone in seeking to make the Liberal Party lurch back to the right.

These days it's difficult to distinguish between commentators and players.

But Government insiders have been particularly intrigued by the venom and volume of comments from former Queensland premier Campbell Newman in the past week.

Malcolm Turnbull was a big part of the movement to oust Tony Abbott from the Liberal leadership. ( AAP: Mick Tsikas )

Mr Newman, now a paid provocateur on Sky News, whose fall from power was as spectacular as Mr Abbott's, this week called on Mr Turnbull to resign because he had led the Liberal Party into the "valley of death".

He repeated this view during an interview with ABC Brisbane on Thursday, asserting that Queenslanders "don't get Malcolm Turnbull" because he and the coalition lacked authenticity.

Mr Newman, Government insiders suspect, is eying off George Brandis' spot in the Senate, for when the Attorney-General moves on.

There appears to be considerable forward planning for life in the Liberals after Malcolm. Where Mr Abbott fits in that future is the fascination.