Liberals have accused the former cabinet minister Ian Macfarlane of “gaming the system” and showing disloyalty to the party by defecting to the Nationals in an apparent bid to return to the Coalition frontbench.

Regional Liberal MP Dan Tehan said the shift was purely about self-advancement, while senior minister Christopher Pyne suggested Macfarlane should have accepted his dumping from the cabinet in September because he had already had “a pretty good run in the cabinet”.

But the deputy leader of the Nationals, Barnaby Joyce, pushed back at the criticism, saying it was not unprecedented for people to move between the Coalition parties and noted it was not as significant as ousting a prime minister.

The defection, revealed two-and-a-half months after Malcolm Turnbull dropped Macfarlane from the cabinet in the name of renewal, sets the scene for the Nationals to argue for an extra frontbench position at the expense of the Liberals.

It is unclear how quickly a reshuffle could happen, but the development coincides with the Liberal special minister of state, Mal Brough, coming under intense pressure arising from a police investigation into his alleged role in the disclosure of the diary of former speaker Peter Slipper.

I have given no commitments to Ian Macfarlane, says Warren Truss – video Guardian

The government is playing down the prospect of imminent ministerial changes, and it is more likely such a reshuffle would occur after a decision by the deputy prime minister and long-serving leader of the Nationals, Warren Truss, about his political future.

Joyce pointedly said politics was “ruthlessly governed by the numbers”. He noted then prime minister John Howard had “immediately” reduced the Nationals’ representation in the ministry after Victorian senator Julian McGauran defected from the Nationals to the Liberals in 2006. That defection went in the opposite direction.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a person has changed position in the Coalition, these things happen,” Joyce told the ABC on Friday. “That’s what happens all the time. Hell, we just changed the prime minister not that long ago.”

But some Liberals were forthright in signalling their displeasure.

Tehan, the MP for the Victorian seat of Wannan, said Macfarlane’s decision was “purely about someone seeking a position” and was not about who best represented regional and rural Australia.

He likened the decision to someone changing their football team “because one football team might be going better at some stage or that means you might get to go and see a grand final”.

“What you should be doing is staying loyal to the party that has been there for you and helped you get where you are, and then focus on what’s important to your communities, but what we shouldn’t be seeing is people trying to game the system for their own self-advancement,” Tehan told the ABC.

He used even stronger language in a subsequent interview, saying the move “seems to have been done for naked ambition”.

Pyne, who assumed Macfarlane’s industry and science portfolios in Turnbull’s reshuffle in September, told the Nine Network: “I’m sorry he was disappointed that he was asked to retire from the cabinet, but he has been in the cabinet since 2000 so he had a pretty good run in the cabinet. I’m sorry he was disappointed and if he wants to be in the National party room he goes with our best wishes but he is still part of our coalition.”

Pyne played down the significance of the defection in light of the special circumstances in Queensland, where the two conservative parties merged into a single Liberal National party (LNP). When they come to Canberra, federal representatives sit in either the Liberal or National party rooms.

“Look, I was disappointed but the LNP in Queensland is a different kind of party to the rest of the country ... so it really is just an internal party dynamic and I do not think the public think it is really very important; it is neither here nor there,” Pyne said.

Macfarlane, a former president of the Grains Council, is seeking the approval of the LNP federal divisional council for his electorate of Groom to move to the Nationals party room.

His electorate includes the city of Toowoomba and parts of the Darling Downs farming region. His defection would increase the number of Nationals MPs and senators from 21 to 22.

Macfarlane, who has been talking to Truss since shortly after the ministerial reshuffle, has not hidden his ambition to return to the frontbench.

He told the West Australian newspaper: “Malcolm’s still a mate but I want to have the crunch of being a cabinet minister to represent my own seat and regional Queensland.”

There has been speculation about the possibility of further defections. Natasha Griggs, a Northern Territory-based Country Liberal party MP, confirmed she had been approached but decided not to move to the Nationals.



Scott Buchholz, a Queensland MP who was dumped as chief government whip by Turnbull, has yet to comment on reports he is considering moving to the Nationals. He is a former chief of staff to Joyce.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said the upheaval was a sign of government division and Turnbull’s flawed judgment.

Shorten said the prime minister had erred in September when he “promoted the wrong man, Mal Brough, and demoted the right guy, Ian Macfarlane”.

“Watching what’s happened with Ian Macfarlane, it is the first visible crack in terms of a deeply divided and unhappy government,” Shorten said.