Tony Abbott's former adviser Terry Barnes offers four suggestions for how the Prime Minister can learn from his first 100 days in office and turn the narrative around in 2014.

Immediately after the election of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, I wrote in The Drum that the more people see of him, the more that they will like him.

Post-election opinion polls suggest this isn't happening. Last Tuesday's Newspoll gave a divided and discredited Labor Party under new leader Bill Shorten a two-party preferred lead over the three-months-old Abbott Coalition Government; but this is not a positive endorsement of the Opposition. Instead, it indicates uneasiness about the Government's direction and performance. It is an anti-climactic way for Abbott to end 2013.

If not tackled quickly, such early perceptions will harden and make the Coalition's re-election in 2016 no sure thing. The Coalition's own recovery after its drubbing by Kevin Rudd and Labor in 2007 should remind complacent Coalition supporters that electoral dominance is more than a big majority of bums on parliamentary seats: voter support is ever-fragile, and re-election is never a foregone conclusion.

As part of taking stock as the year ends, there are four things that the Government needs to do.

1. Get its story straight

The Coalition thrashed Labor on the back of repealing the carbon and mining taxes, stopping asylum-seeker boats and reining in debt, deficit and waste. Yet in its first 100 days, the Senate blocked the tax repeals; relations with Indonesia - crucial to the Australia's ability to suppress people-smuggling - were strained by the fallout from the Rudd-era Yudhoyono eavesdropping scandal; the Government's standout legislative achievement was abolishing the previous government's debt ceiling to allow the deficit to grow rather than shrink; and, having campaigned hard on waste in government, it badly misjudged the electorate's anger about perceived abuses of parliamentary entitlements.

That most of these problems were inherited from the departed Labor regime is immaterial: this is now the Coalition's watch and, having rejected Labor decisively, people want equally decisive action from their elected leaders. After three months, the polls indicate that at least some voters are thinking that Abbott is not in control of his own agenda or, worse, that the agenda didn't really matter in the first place. Even Blind Freddie can see that these are dangerous perceptions, however untrue.

2. Keeps its promises (even those it would rather forget)

If any one factor ensured the Government's poor Newspoll result, it was Education Minister Christopher Pyne's belligerent and ultimately pointless shirt-fronting of the states over schools funding deals based on the Gonski review, contradicting pre-election assurances. Pyne, Abbott and the Government generally were damaged by the uproar and their handling of it. If they didn't like Gonski, the Coalition should never have committed to honouring Labor's Gonski funding deals in the campaign. To last in Government, promises made must be promises kept.

3. Re-jig its political management

Treasurer Joe Hockey's deliberate goading last week of General Motors to "come clean" on whether Holden will keep manufacturing in Australia may not have forced Detroit's hand, but it made it too easy for Labor and the unions to blame the new government for the GM's final decision to leave in 2017. The Gonski uproar and the Holden decision are sharp reminders that governments need to think strategically, anticipate problems and expect the unexpected. While many Abbott ministers were junior ministers or parliamentary secretaries in the Howard government, only eight have prior Cabinet experience (nine including John Howard's revered chief of staff, Arthur Sinodinos) - several of those only in 2007. Pyne, especially, is re-learning basic political lessons of government - like preparing the ground thoroughly before changing your position - the hard way.

Abbott's back office support also needs rethinking. The tight command and control Coalition regime so successful in Opposition isn't translating to running a sprawling and bloated Government. Abbott is a strong believer in Cabinet authority and deliberative decision-making, and his pledge to restore strong Cabinet processes after the aberrations of Rudd and Gillard years reflects his long-held convictions. As part of honouring that commitment, however, the PM needs to ensure that his and other ministers' offices support Cabinet, not the other way around. That his ubiquitous chief of staff, Peta Credlin, has become a recognisable public figure in her own right doesn't help her boss.

4. Have a break

The 2013 election campaign actually started in June 2010, with federal politics being conducted at breakneck speed ever since. Mistakes and misjudgements since the Government's election at least partly reflect creeping fatigue: even the fittest can shrivel under unceasing pressure. As the annual silly season begins, the best thing the PM, ministers and key advisers can do to refocus is get away, spend some time with their families, watch the cricket, and read some trashy novels instead of briefing papers. Besides his overseas Christmas break with his family, Abbott himself should don his budgie smugglers at every opportunity in January.

As I wrote in September, Abbott is smart, talented and likeable. He has the makings of a great Prime Minister within him. But first he must fix the teething problems dogging his government, and head off negative voter perceptions from becoming entrenched.

In his end-of-year interviews the PM candidly acknowledged mistakes made, and stated his determination to learn from them. To ensure his Government's success, he must apply those lessons in 2014.

Terry Barnes is a policy consultant and was a senior ministerial adviser to Tony Abbott in the Howard government. He writes regularly for major newspapers and magazines, and blogs at Cormorant. Follow him on Twitter @TerryBarnes5. View his full profile here.