Abbott to lead to election: Turnbull

Voters should assume that Tony Abbott will lead the Liberal Party to the next election, Malcolm Turnbull says.

The communications minister has been consistently rated the more favoured prime minister when compared with Mr Abbott in opinion polls.

Polls have also shown a lift in the coalition's stocks should the leadership change, turning around Labor's long-standing lead with 18 months to go until a federal election.

However a leadership spill motion in February failed 39 votes to 61.

Asked on ABC radio on Wednesday why he was not prime minister, Mr Turnbull gave a technical answer.

"The prime minister is Tony Abbott and he has the confidence of the Liberal Party room," Mr Turnbull said.

"And as long as the Liberal Party and its coalition colleagues have a majority in the House of Representatives the Liberal party's leader will be prime minister."

Mr Turnbull said everyone in the coalition wanted the polls to improve.

"But nonetheless the only thing that, other than his own actions or something else ... prior to an election, that can change the prime minister is a decision of the Liberal party room.

"I think you should assume Tony Abbott will remain leader of the Liberal Party and hence the prime minister up to the next election."

The former Liberal leader defended Mr Abbott's commitment to remote indigenous communities after criticism of the prime minister's comment that it was not the taxpayers' job to "subsidise lifestyle choices".

It was important we talk about the issue thoughtfully and rationally, Mr Turnbull said.

"Rather than - as is often the case with the prime minister - whenever he opens his mouth his critics leap on him like a pack of forwards onto a bit of loose ball."

Mr Turnbull said the prime minister had accepted the failed spill motion as a wake-up call.

"Everybody needs a tune-up every now and then," he told Fairfax radio in a separate interview.