By aggressively talking down Kevin Rudd's new asylum seeker package, Tony Abbott is in danger of putting personal political interests ahead of the national interest and even ahead of the stated objectives of his own policy. It is that bizarre.

Abbott's frustration is understandable. Faced with a late policy shift that might do the very thing he's been demanding, which is stop the boats, he is flummoxed, claiming the new policy is already ''unravelling before our very eyes''.

''It is not legally binding and it doesn't say what Mr Rudd says it said. It doesn't say that everyone who comes to Australia illegally by boat will go to PNG and it doesn't say that no one who goes to PNG will ever come to Australia,'' he said.

Rudd, who said the policy was absolute and was not contradicted by PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill at their joint press conference on Friday, was scathing.