Tony Abbott admits the government has been through a bad patch, overreached in the budget last year but says the situation now is very different to three weeks ago.
The prime minister said his challenge was to lead a government more in common with the reforming governments of Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard than with the Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
"I accept that we have been through a bad patch. Certainly the experience of the government in Queensland naturally helped to unnerve some of my colleagues," he said on Sky News.
Mr Abbott said he wanted to get on with government, be straight with people, address their problems, make their jobs more secure and their businesses more prosperous so they can better afford the things on supermarket shelves.
"If you can do all those things, then a sensible decent people will give you an appropriate political reward," he said.
Mr Abbott said the government had steadied and got down to business.
"The situation inside the government today is very different to what is was three weeks ago," he said.
Asked about last year's budget, Mr Abbott said the government had learned some important lessons about the political speed limits on structural reforms.
He said Labor under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating was lucky that it faced an opposition prepared to co-operate on most reforms.
"The Howard government didn't have such an opposition and we now don't have such an opposition. Obviously we did overreach in some important structural reforms," he said.
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