TONY Abbott has made sure to set expectations for Malcolm Turnbull's new frontbench job so high they will be difficult - maybe even impossible - to fulfil.

The Coalition leader had little choice but to elevate the still-ambitious man he defeated for the top job, the only big change to an opposition frontbench that forced Labor to the brink of defeat.

Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has been given the task of ''demolishing'' the government on broadband. Credit:Glen McCurtayne

Abbott famously confessed during the election campaign that he was ''no tech-head'' as he struggled to explain his own broadband policy. But he said he expected Turnbull, his new communications spokesman, with all his ''business experience and technical expertise'', to use Labor's national broadband network to destroy the minority Gillard government's credibility in the same way school halls and pink batts were used to undo Kevin Rudd.

Turnbull, he confidently predicted, would ''entirely demolish the government on this issue''. Talk about setting the bar high.