Former Whip Philip Ruddock appeared on 2UE, where he emphasised his support

EXCLUSIVE

TONY Abbott was informed by former chief whip Philip Ruddock on multiple occasions that there was disquiet among his backbench about the direction of his government.

In a direct rebuke to the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday, News Corp Australia understands Mr Abbott was told on multiple occasions about the level of concern by his chief whip.

But even before things came to that, Mr Ruddock’s role was substantially muted in comparison to the chief whip’s position in opposition and under the former Howard government.

Mr Ruddock was cut out of key tactics meetings and full meetings of the ministry.

“In the Howard era the whip was included in everything like that,” one MP said.

“To cut Philip out of those meetings and then say it’s all his fault, that he didn’t tell us what’s going on is just stupid.

PHILIP RUDDOCK SACKED: Did Tony Abbott just break another promise?

“Philip has been treated like the rest of us — we don’t want to hear any problems, just do what we say.”

News Corp Australia also understands the Prime Minister began calling a large number of MPs directly in January to gauge how they felt about the direction his government was taking.

It is understood Mr Ruddock encouraged MPs to express any concerns they had directly with Mr Abbott.

On Friday, the Prime Minister sacked Mr Ruddock, who was elected in 1973, as chief whip and replaced him with Queensland Liberal National Party MP Scott Buchholz. Abbott loyalist Andrew Nikolic was promoted to one of the deputy whip positions.

Contacted today, Mr Ruddock would not comment further to what he said over the weekend about his sacking.

“I have nothing further to say on that, the decision was one made by the leader,” Mr Ruddock said.

“My expectation is that if the Prime Minister had concerns about the way I undertook the task, he would put them to me.”

During a radio appearance this afternoon, Mr Ruddock could not confirm that Tony Abbott still had his support to continue as Prime Minister.

“He had my support,” Mr Ruddock told Sydney’s 2UE radio referring to last week’s spill motion.

But pressed further on if that meant Mr Abbott still enjoyed his support, Mr Ruddock would not elaborate.

“He had my support,” he repeated.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said he was blindsided by the level of discontent within his party, following 39 MPs in his party room voting in favour of a leadership spill last Monday.

“Plainly, I wasn’t as aware as I should have been of all of this. I never want to find myself in this position ever again,” Mr Abbott told Andrew Bolt when quizzed about Mr Ruddock’s sacking yesterday.

Today Mr Abbott compared the whip decision to his ministry reshuffle last year.

News Corp Australia has been told by more than a dozen MPs that they personally spoke with the Prime Minister in the lead up to last week’s vote on a leadership spill.

Many said they directly expressed concerns over the party’s direction and certain key policies such as Paid Parental Leave and the GP co-payment.

“I told him how I felt and that I wasn’t the only one,” one MP said.

Another MP said: “Prime ministers have telephones provided free of charge by the Commonwealth so they have plenty of time to ring plenty of people”.

Another MP said: “That statement (from Mr Abbott) doesn’t seem at all accurate. I know MPs were telling him about their concerns, and it wasn’t just backbenchers I must say.”

“The level of backbench angst and anger was continuing to rise for six months. Those calls we got in January were the first real chat many of us had had with the Prime Minister in the whole time we’ve been in government,” another MP said.

“You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see what was coming.”

Several MPs have told News Corp Australia they have been fielding calls from the Liberal party membership and community leaders who were “particularly antsy” about Mr Ruddock’s sacking.

“Philip is Mr Multicultural. He is deeply respected and a lot of community leaders are really angry about how he’s been treated,” one MP said.

Another MP said: “The multicultural community is really upset about this decision. My office has been getting calls about it.”