Mr Abbott used his fortnightly conversation with 2GB's Ray Hadley to attack minister Christopher Pyne as being secretly complicit in the push by five Liberal backbenchers to dump the plebiscite policy and put the same-sex marriage push straight to a vote.

Mr Abbott referenced secretly recorded comments Mr Pyne made to a factional gathering a month ago in which he said a resolution to same sex marriage was not far off.

"Plainly there has been talk behind the scenes by the same-sex marriage lobby for some time" Mr Abbott said. "Christopher Pyne was a key part of that."

He said Mr Pyne's comments to the factional gathering were "a shocking thing to say".

But the hardening against a postal vote will worry other conservatives such as Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann who have devised the postal vote option so the issue can be resolved by Christmas.

Federal cabinet is meeting Monday to rubber stamp a proposal by Senator Cormann to put to the Liberal Party meeting later in the day in which the party will adopt as policy a postal ballot in the likelihood the Senate again rejects legislation to establish a plebiscite.

A postal vote, which the government believes can be established without legislation, would satisfy the election promise to consult the public before having parliamentary vote.

If the postal vote was carried, a parliamentary vote could then be held and the matter ended.


Mr Abbott said he would argue in the party room Monday that while a non-compulsory postal ballot was "better than a free vote", there were questions "about how authoritive it would be".

"There has to be a plebiscite," he said.

Same sex marriage proponents have already dismissed a postal vote as being unnecessary and not authoritive and will fight its establishment in in the High Court.

In the same interview on 2GB, Mr Abbott again stressed the importance of a government keeping its election promise on a same sex marriage plebiscite while simultaneously urging the government to break another key promise and abandon the Renewable Energy Target.

He said called for an end to subsidising "intermittent unreliable power", deriding it as "green theology" and "green religion".

The Renewable Energy Target taken to the last election was agreed to when Mr Abbott was prime minister.

One of Mr Abbott senior colleagues said the former prime minister should apply his own philosophy on the same sex marriage plebiscite to the RET and also the Paris climate change targets, which Mr Abbott agreed to as prime minister but now also wants to abandon.