Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has backed away from a key argument for rolling Tony Abbott in 2015, denying that consistent poor polling should represent a trigger for a leadership challenge.

Labor has led the Coalition in the 10 most recent Newspoll results, and recorded a 10-point advantage in last month's Fairfax-Ipsos poll.

But on Friday, Mr Turnbull argued the leadership change was "history", and said poor opinion polls were not a "metric" for a leadership challenge.

On the day of the 2015 party room vote, Mr Turnbull cited the Coalition's dire polling position as evidence the government should change leaders, arguing it showed Labor was on track to win the election against Mr Abbott.