Cory Bernardi’s imminent split from the Liberal party has generated a renewed slanging match between the outspoken conservative South Australian senator and the former prime minister Tony Abbott.



The two men fell out publicly at Christmas time as Bernardi was planning his exit from the Liberal party – and Bernardi told confidantes during December he was profoundly irritated that Abbott was using the prospect of his defection as a trigger for a renewed bout of aggression against the current prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

Why Cory Bernardi's vote counts Cory Bernardi can wield considerable influence outside the Liberal party on an enlarged Senate crossbench. Bernardi's resignation brings the Coalition down to 29 seats. One Nation (three) and the Nick Xenophon Team (three) are key to helping the government achieve a majority of 38 (39 when the two vacancies are filled). Bernardi's vote counts because the government can only afford to lose two or three crossbench votes. Although voters tend to vote for party groups, once senators are elected the seat is theirs, not the party's. Senators who have abandoned their parties include Mal Colston (Labor), Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie (Palmer United party) and Rodney Culleton (One Nation).

Abbott positioned himself in December to make the Bernardi defection a test of leadership for Turnbull, writing at the time Australia did not need a new conservative party, it needed “a credible agenda for the mainstream conservative political movement that already exists”.

Bernardi hit back just before Christmas, rebuking Abbott on social media. “While most on break, [the] only person talking up division in [the] Lib Party this past week is Tony Abbott. Always back the horse named self-interest.”

With Bernardi expected to confirm his decision to set up a breakaway conservative movement on Tuesday, when federal parliament gets under way for the new year, Fairfax Media revived the December row late on Monday, which prompted Abbott to take to social media to deny leaking sensitive information against Bernardi just before Christmas.

Falsehoods in SMH. I don't leak against colleagues. Never have, never will. — Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) February 6, 2017

The unseemly opening to the new political year compounds the degree of operating difficulty for Turnbull, who has been buffeted by events during the summer, including the loss of the former health minister Sussan Ley to an expenses controversy and a rocky opening to the Trump presidency.

On Monday, Turnbull woke to a Newspoll showing the Coalition is bleeding support to One Nation. The new poll suggests support for the Coalition has hit its lowest level since Turnbull replaced Abbott as prime minister.

After positioning for the split for months, the outspoken South Australian Liberal senator went to ground on Monday but two other volubly disaffected government conservatives, the Queensland backbencher George Christensen and the Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz, said they were not intending to join Bernardi in the breakaway movement.

While Christensen and Abetz made it clear they were staying inside the Coalition, both continued their public warnings to the prime minister to heed the preoccupations of the conservative base.

“The message from the rank and file and the base has been one that’s, you know, disgruntled to say the least,” Christensen told reporters in Canberra.

“We need to reconnect with our core constituency and with the people at large and I think that there’s moves afoot to do that, so I really do hope that we succeed in doing that, because if we drift away any further, you know, it’s going to become untenable.”

The treasurer, Scott Morrison, also made a last-ditch public appeal to Bernardi, who was refusing entreaties from colleagues.

Morrison declared that having being just elected as a Liberal for a six-year term last year, Bernardi should stay in the Liberal party. “At the last election he was elected as a Liberal senator by Liberal voters to support the Liberal party in this parliament and be part of our team,” he said.

Malcolm Turnbull and the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, pay their respects at the Australian War Memorial, which has become a precursor to the resumption of parliament. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Bernardi’s imminent defection comes in the middle of renewed chest bumping between conservatives and moderates over same-sex marriage, with Christensen declaring on Monday that, if the government moved past the plebiscite to a free vote, then “the show’s over”.

Government moderates have been executing a strategy over the past several months that is designed to ensure the Liberal party emerges with a free vote on same-sex marriage after the failure of the plebiscite.

Moderates insist that a free vote is now the government’s position, in line with Abbott’s view, articulated when he was prime minister, that the last parliament, the 44th parliament, would be the final parliament in which Liberal MPs would be bound.

But conservatives are opposed to same-sex marriage moving to resolution by a free vote in this parliament – an issue that will ultimately be slugged out in the Coalition party room if government MPs move to bring forward a marriage equality bill.

As MPs arrived back in Canberra, the government attempted to finalise its agenda for the coming parliamentary fortnight at a meeting of the cabinet and the ministry on Monday.

As the prime minister telegraphed last week, the government is looking to move in the next couple of days to introduce legislation setting up a new authority to oversee parliamentary entitlements, as well as pursuing childcare reforms.

Turnbull and the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, went to pay their respects on Monday evening at the Australian War Memorial, which has become a precursor to the resumption of parliament.

The Labor caucus also met on Monday and Shorten delivered a pep talk to his returning MPs that was heavy on the government’s woes.

“Labor and the people of Australia don’t care what goes on down the hallway, whether or not Cory Bernardi stays or goes, whether or not Malcolm goes, whether or not Tony comes back or Julie Bishop finally gets a run,” Shorten told Labor’s first caucus meeting for 2017.

“That isn’t what’s going to help people pay for their first house. It doesn’t help people find a job or keep a job. It certainly doesn’t help save Medicare.

“Whilst the Liberals are focused on their own jobs and the jobs of their leader and their Coalition partners the Nationals continually ignore the needs of people in the bush – what we want to do in Labor is focus on the priorities of everyday Australians.”