Whenever Tony Abbott found himself in a spot of poll bother he'd don a fluorescent jacket and talk about the carbon tax.
Facing his own Newspoll caning, Malcolm Turnbull began the parliamentary sitting week with a trip to a bottle factory in the ACT-NSW border suburb of Hume - an industrial neighbourhood frequented by Mr Abbott when he was prime minister.
Mr Turnbull was all smiles and in a glass half-full mood as he was donned his high vis safety vest.
Ready to discuss energy prices with local businesses, he was flanked by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and local senator Zed Seselja.
The senator was earlier on Monday outed as one of "the deplorables" - a group of conservative MPs who have been having regular phone hook-ups to coordinate a strategy to attack Mr Turnbull and push for Mr Abbott's reinstatement to cabinet.
The first question fired at the prime minister was how bad do the polls have to get before one was replaced as leader.
"We're focused on energy costs and jobs," he batted back.
But pressed again he let rip at Mr Abbott who late last week announced the government was "drifting to defeat" at the next election.
"What we saw was an outburst ... and it had its desired impact on the Newspoll," Mr Turnbull said.
Insisting he was concentrating on delivering strong leadership, the prime minister provided a run down of his weekend.
"Let me tell you what I did," he said.
"I was meeting with the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo."
As Mr Turnbull returned to a waiting car, Senator Seselja rejected the characterisation of the "deplorables" as an Abbott advance team as completely wrong.
"We have policy discussions pretty regularly in all sorts of forums," he said without denying that included text messages.
The talks were all about the good of the government and the good of the country.
Senator Seselja conceded Mr Abbott's contribution last week was unhelpful, saying Mr Turnbull had his full support.
"These sort of things are distracting," he said.
The Newspoll published in The Australian on Monday, showed Labor lead the coalition amongst voters, at 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.
