During an interview with ABC News Breakfast on Friday, Mr Abbott strongly backed his chief of staff and said her attackers wouldn't be so vocal if Ms Credlin was a man. In recent weeks the Prime Minister Tony Abbott's chief of staff Peta Credlin has been reaching out to MPs to listen to their policy concerns. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "Do you really think my chief of staff would be under this kind of criticism if her name was Peter as opposed to Peta?" Mr Abbott asked the ABC's Lyndal Curtis. "I think people need to take a long hard look at themselves with some of these criticisms. "If people have a problem with my office obviously they can tell me because what my office does is what I ask my office to do."

One Liberal parliamentarian contacted by Fairfax Media said MPs would not take kindly to having been effectively labelled "sexists and misogynists". Prime Minister Tony Abbott made the comments during an interview on ABC News Breakfast. "This has all the hallmarks of Julia Gillard's paranoia," the source said. Ms Credlin is married to the Liberal Party's federal director Brian Loughnane. This has also been a long-running point of contention within the Liberal Party because MPs feel if they have internal concerns about Mr Abbott's office or the federal secretariat, they are unable to raise the issue because of Mr Loughnane's and Ms Credlin's grip on both. Discontent with Ms Credlin has fuelled speculation within the Liberal Party that she could leave Mr Abbott's office ahead of the 2016 election to take up a seat in the House of Representatives or Senate.

It has been suggested she could either take stood-aside Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos' NSW Senate seat or Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews' safe Melbourne seat of Menzies. Mr Abbott is likely to come under fire for raising Ms Credlin's gender as a defence given he has previously attacked former prime minister Julia Gillard for doing the same. "As the father of three daughters I want them to be judged on what they do. I do not want them to be judged favourably or unfavourably on the basis of their gender and I think it's time that everyone in the Parliament moved on from this gender card which so many members of the government have been playing," Mr Abbott said in October 2012. Two months later, in a speech to the Food and Grocery Council, Mr Abbott said: "Alas, we have a government which plays the class war card when it gets in to trouble and when it doesn't play the class war card, tends to play the gender card to try to deflect what is legitimate criticism." Follow us on Twitter