But Mr Howard concedes Labor will probably be re-elected.

"Apart from spending a lot of money, which is easy to do because everybody puts their hand up for it, he (Mr Rudd) has not done anything," Mr Howard said. "This is his big problem. Even comparing him with Hawke and Keating in their first couple of years, they'd done a lot more.

"Economic credentials depend on more than spending a lot of money to stimulate the economy when there's an overseas recession. One of the reasons why we had a good reputation in this area was that we had undertaken economic reforms. Now there are no economic reforms the Rudd government has undertaken."

Mr Howard said that within two years of winning government in 1996, he and treasurer Peter Costello "set the budget on the road to being in surplus, we completely revolutionised the whole labour exchange system, we'd sold 30 per cent of Telstra, we'd changed the labour market, we'd given the Reserve Bank independence, we had a charter of budget honesty, we'd got the Wallis inquiry into the financial system."

They also paid off debt and reformed the waterfront, he said.

On tax, Mr Howard contrasted his government's taking a proposal for a goods and services tax to the people in 1998 with Labor's timidity in holding back the Henry tax review.

"We had announced, not an inquiry into the taxation system, an intention to reform the taxation system, including the introduction of a broad-based indirect tax," he said.

"We announced that in September of 1997, which was only 18 months after we'd won office."

Mr Howard said Labor was gloating about its supposed economic credibility but was scared of taking difficult decisions.

"You have to spend political capital on reforms," he said. "I was absolutely determined to do that."

Mr Howard said Australia was in good shape compared with other countries because of 25 years of reform "to which both sides of politics, under previous governments, contributed".

The only reason Labor was able to respond as it did to the global financial crisis, he argued, was because "the former government left the books in very good shape".

"Our stimulus was very big by world standards," Mr Howard said. "It was much bigger than the stimulus in America or Britain. But we could afford to have it much bigger. I think it was too big. I'm not saying there shouldn't have been any."

Mr Howard said voters had given the new Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt.

"They've cut Rudd a lot of slack," he said. "But I think a lot of people are now saying, `OK, you've had two years, you've spent a lot of Howard's money -- well it's not Howard's money, it's our money Howard saved for you. What else have you done? And you told us this great ETS was a big thing, so what are you doing about it? A lot of people are starting to think that. A myriad other things. But there's quite a strong feeling developing in the electorate he's all talk and no action."

Mr Howard, who is the Opposition Leader's political mentor, said he thought Mr Abbott had a chance to win the next election.

"Tony has a great potential to appeal to middle Australia, because he is more authentic than Rudd," he said.

"History tells you that the government will probably get a second term. But history is there to be remade and recast and turned on its head.

"But if you look at the history of this country, you've only had one government turned out after its first term, at a federal level. It's happened quite a bit at state level, quite a bit.

"Tony understands that. He's said it's possible, not probable, he'll win. It's a fair way of putting it. He's got a chance. Rudd does not have a super majority."