Malcolm Turnbull has “nothing to apologise for” in regards to Barnaby Joyce, the prime minister has said, describing the meeting he held with his deputy in the same terms as his now-infamous first phone call with Donald Trump.

The leaders of the Liberal and National coalition parties met on Saturday, without their staff, to hash out their differences after a public war of words that saw Turnbull question his deputy’s moral character, advising him to “reflect” on his position, and Joyce hit back calling the prime minister “inept”.

With Joyce on personal leave and Turnbull about to head out of the country to meet with the US president, the prime minister was keen to put to bed any suggestion of an ongoing rift between the pair.

“It was a frank discussion between the leaders of our two Coalition parties who have been working together through our predecessor parties for 95 years, it is the most enduring political alliance in Australian political history and it will continue,” he said, adding that he had not apologised to Joyce as “there is nothing to apologise for”.

“I can assure you that the relations are very strong. I know there was a great excitement in the media that there was some Coalition clash, there are no issues between the Liberal and National parties, at all. None at all. And we are working very closely together, on all the huge, wide range of issues that affect the government.”

When asked to describe the tone of the meeting, Turnbull said it was a “frank and warm, friendly, good, constructive meeting”.

Turnbull used very similar language in February last year, when asked to describe his first conversation with newly elected Trump, which he called “frank” and “forthright”.

Later that year a transcript of the pair’s phone conversation was leaked to the Washington Post and revealed a combative conversation, where Trump criticised the refugee swap deal as “stupid”, told Turnbull he was “worse than I am” and called the conversation “the most unpleasant” call he had made that day.

Turnbull leaves for Washington later this week to meet Trump, but appeared to grow frustrated with the continued focus on his relationship with Joyce, as the government struggled to highlight its policy work.

“It is always very important to meet, to work through the various challenges and issues that we face, but the important thing is, Barnaby and I are working closely together, as we always have,” he said.

“He is obviously taking some leave this coming week and we look forward to him returning from that at the end of the week.”

On Sunday morning the treasurer, Scott Morrison also assured voters that all was well in the Coalition, while quibbling over whether the prime minister had ever advised Joyce to step down.

“That was a direct position to the deputy prime minister, not to the National party. I mean, that’s a decision for Barnaby to make, as it would be for a Liberal minister in those situations as well,” Morrison told the ABC’s Insiders program.

Morrison maintained the issue was about standards: “This is about having sex with one of your staff when you’re a person of power and influence as a minister,” he said.



“This is not moral police. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or single. You shouldn’t sleep with your staff. It’s a bad practice. It’s not conducive to the good running of your office and the performance of your duties. And that’s the public interest point,” he said.



“But clearly, as a standard, it obviously now needs to be set out and I’m disappointed that Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek don’t think it’s a standard that they should sign up to.”