Labor is seeking to exploit divides within the Coalition, targeting the Queensland Liberal National party where it sees the greatest weakness.

The LNP’s loss at the Queensland state election has reopened old wounds for the party, which formed from the merger of the Coalition partners in 2008 after a concerted push to reverse a string of election losses.

It worked, with the party winning its first election in 14 years in a landslide victory in 2012. Less than three years later it was turfed out of government in a historic swing. In November Labor was returned to government, this time with a majority.

The Queensland loss, coming after a defeat in Western Australia and with growing chasm within the federal Coalition has intensified calls from the merger critics for the LNP to split back into two parties, a divide Labor is working on taking advantage of.

“Queensland can win or lose us the federal election, we have already made that clear – you’ve seen how often Bill [Shorten] and the frontbench have been up there,” one Labor source said.

“The Libs are gifting us this. The more they talk about demerging the party up there, the more they argue over insider party stuff, the easier our job is in Queensland convincing voters the Turnbull government only cares about itself.”

The outgoing senator George Brandis, a longtime critic of the merger, again called for the party to demerge as he prepared to leave for the UK, where he is to become Australia’s high commissioner.

Ron Boswell, another critic of the merger added his voice to the fray, while the New South Wales Liberal frontbencher Concetta Fierravanti-Wells also suggested the party look at splitting.

Labor held two media conferences in Queensland on Friday. The Queensland MP Jim Chalmers used the public spat to attack the government over its consultancy bill.

“Here’s a bit of free advice for the Coalition under Malcolm Turnbull: maybe it’s not the name of your party or structure of your party that people in Queensland are absolutely filthy about,” he said.

“Maybe it’s your cuts to penalty rates, maybe it’s your tax cuts for the top end of town. Maybe it’s the tax cuts for millionaires. Maybe it’s the fact you think a royal commission into banking scandals is, and I quote, ‘regrettable’.”

Not long after, Anthony Albanese was in the state calling on the new infrastructure minister, Barnaby Joyce, to fund critical infrastructure projects including Brisbane’s cross-river rail.

It’s the growing popularity of minor parties in regional Queensland, such as One Nation, which has Coalition MPs nervous about the next election, despite the Pauline Hanson-led party only winning one seat at the state election.

But LNP insiders point to the 2016 federal result, where Queensland bucked the national swing against the Turnbull government and delivered a net loss of one seat, with 21 LNP MPs sitting in the joint party room, compared with 23 from NSW and 17 from Victoria.

It was those figures which were used to justify dumping the popular Victorian Nationals MP Darren Chester from the cabinet in this month’s reshuffle, in favour of little-known Queenslanders John McVeigh and David Littleproud.

But Joyce has come under fire for using the reshuffle to settle scores within the party, with the Queenslander Keith Pitt also losing his spot as an assistant minister, which was seen as payback for his lack of support for Joyce’s choice of deputy leader, the Queensland senator Matt Canavan.

“What is happening in the Nationals is not great, but it will get sorted,” an LNP source told Guardian Australia.

“But if they think there is any appetite to demerge inside Queensland, they are kidding themselves. None of the branches are calling for it. It’s either people outside Queensland who don’t understand it, or those who were never in favour.”

The Tasmanian conservative Eric Abetz used the spat over the LNP’s fortunes to rebuke the Coalition’s leadership.

“Rather than fiddling with the structure and constitutional arrangements, I would invite the party to have a look at leadership, have a look at policy settings, to determine why votes are leaking away to other conservative parties,” he told Sky News.

“Let’s have a look at the successes, as well as the not-so-successful elections, and it seems to me that we’ve had huge success with Campbell Newman and with Tony Abbott. Not so much success in recent times …

“I’m not sure that the conservative element has been embraced as it might be and as it should be, and I think that is where we are seeing some leakage in the vote.”

While 2017’s disputes continue to play out publicly, the prime minister has attempted to turn the page to 2018, releasing his government’s plan for the new year on social media as focusing on “continuing to build a stronger economy and more jobs”.