Barnaby Joyce has declared he will be a candidate if the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, spills the Nationals leadership, but the current Nationals leader insists he is going nowhere.

The declaration of intent by Joyce to the Northern Daily Leader on Friday will keep the spotlight trained on internal party tensions after the former Nationals leader suggested in October he would retake the leadership if drafted but denied doing the numbers.

“If it was called open, of course I would stand,” Joyce reportedly told his local paper on Friday, adding he was not “driving” the instability. “I’ve maintained the same line; I have never asked one of my colleagues for a vote, I don’t intend to.”

But McCormack responded buoyantly on Friday. “I’m feeling very safe and secure in my position”. He added party colleagues had called to express support for this leadership.

A sense of despair has gripped the National party, with MPs critical of McCormack’s performance as leader, and frustrated that he won’t stand up to the Liberal party on issues like energy prices, and taxpayer-backed investment in new coal plants.

But Nationals remain divided about whether or not dumping McCormack this side of the election is a good idea.

Joyce, despite the travails that forced his resignation as leader, has rusted-on support in the Nationals party room, with estimates he commands between six and seven fixed votes in a party room of 22.

But some MPs are vehemently opposed to Joyce returning to the leadership, viewing that eventuality as the only thing worse than the status quo. Nationals sources predict if the leadership was spilled there would likely be a field of several MPs that would split the vote.

Joyce resigned as Nationals leader in February 2018 after a sexual harassment complaint by rural advocate Catherine Marriott compounded weeks of bad headlines caused by his affair with a former staffer and now partner, Vikki Campion.

After an eight-month investigation into the complaint was unable to reach a determination, Joyce declared that he was no longer under a cloud and angrily hit out at colleagues using “innuendo” to force him to rule out a return to the Nationals leadership.

It is possible the Nationals could force the issue in the remaining parliamentary sitting, which is budget week, but some predict McCormack will ride out the insurrection and be toppled post-election.

McCormack told reporters on the Gold Coast a report suggesting he had lost the confidence of a majority of the party room was “unsubstantiated”.

He declared he was “absolutely 100% confident” of leading the Nationals to the election. “My colleagues have got behind me today.

“People just want stability, and they want us to stop focusing on ourselves, and we’re not focusing on ourselves.”

On Thursday Guardian Australia reported that McCormack faced a push from six Queensland Nationals to demand the Coalition government take “immediate action” to underwrite new power station construction in regional Queensland, and pass the “big stick” package in the final sitting week of the 45th parliament.

The MPs – George Christensen, Michelle Landry, Ken O’Dowd, Keith Pitt, Llew O’Brien and Barry O’Sullivan – primarily want more coal-fired power but the tall order of their demands has also further destabilised McCormack’s leadership.

On Wednesday McCormack struggled through an interview with Channel Ten’s The Project.

Waleed: “Could you name a single, big policy area where the Nats have sided with the interests of farmers over the interest of miners when they come into conflict?”



Nationals leader Michael McCormack responds. #auspol #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/YnhmNV2ZFJ — The Project (@theprojecttv) March 6, 2019

When asked to nominate an issue where the Nationals had sided with farmers over miners, McCormack noted the government had given $500m for water infrastructure before conceding he could not name an issue where farmers had been preferred – “not straight off the top of my head”.