The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has rejected suggestions Tony Abbott’s leadership is under pressure after his decision to award a knighthood to Prince Philip, saying the prime minister had strong support in the party room.
The prime minister has attracted widespread derision and condemnation from backbenchers for his decision to recommend the knighthood, though few government members were prepared to go on the record to discuss the issue.
Cormann, who was trying to begin the political year by discussing the budget, said of the knighthood only that it was “a decision made by the prime minister”.
Cormann confirmed he had not been consulted on the decision but defended the prime minister for doing an “outstanding job”.
“I don’t agree there are growing concerns about the prime minister’s leadership,” Cormann told ABC radio.
“The prime minister has the strong support of his party room. The prime minister has done an outstanding job for Australia and as leader of the Liberal party now for more than five years.”
But the agriculture minister and deputy National party leader, Barnaby Joyce, said he would not have given Prince Philip the honour.
“I’m always of the strong belief that all awards should be for Australians,” Joyce told ABC local radio.
“There’s been awards in the past given to Nelson Mandela and to other people from overseas, my preference is that these awards go to Australians.”
Joyce said Abbott was entitled to make his own decisions on such matters.
“These things are calls made by the prime minister on his own volition and that’s his entitlement, that’s the office he holds,” Joyce said. “A different person would make different decisions.
“I don’t think the world is going to collapse around our ears because of this,” he said.
The Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, who faces a state election on Saturday, voiced his opposition on Tuesday to Abbott’s decision.
“It was a bolt from the blue,” Newman said. “I disagree with it.”
The defence minister, Kevin Andrews, and a fellow minister, Michaelia Cash, became the first to actively support the decision.
Andrews said it didn’t “cost anything” to make Prince Philip a knight of the Order of Australia while Cash said the prince was “extremely deserving”.
Andrews said: “It doesn’t cost us anything to give him this award.
“How else do we say, in a sense, thank you to someone who’s given six decades of public service?
“I think it’s a phenomenal contribution. He’s still doing it in his 90s now and I think we should just be generous about it.”
Cash, the minister assisting on immigration and women, said Prince Philip was “extremely deserving” given his Duke of Edinburgh scheme which encourages and develops community service among young people.
“The backlash will be the backlash. Some people don’t agree with the decision,” she told the ABC. “I’m all about celebrating. I choose to celebrate achievements. And both Angus Houston [also knighted on Australia Day] and Prince Philip have significant records of community service when it comes to the Commonwealth and Australia.”
On Monday, the Queensland Liberal National MP Warren Entsch said: “I’m not pushing for a change in leader, I’m looking for significant change in leadership.” His Queensland colleague Ewen Jones was equally scathing, saying he did not see the point of the knighthood.
Conservative commentators were damning in their assessment of Abbott’s “captain’s call”.
Tom Switzer has called himself Abbott’s “mate” and run for Liberal preselection, but was highly critical of what the announcement said about the prime minister’s leadership.
“Virtually every Liberal and conservative I know agrees that Abbott is in political trouble and that he needs to get back on the policy offensive,” Switzer wrote for Fairfax Media.
“It means the rumblings about Abbott’s leadership will become louder. But like guests at the last party on the Titanic, his office seems oblivious to imminent disaster.”
Peter van Onselen wrote that Abbott’s decision had united the prime minister’s team in condemnation of their leader. Previously, leadership talk so early in the term had seemed silly, he said.
“But we might look back on yesterday as the moment when fence-sitters changed their collective minds on whether talk of removing the PM needs to be seriously considered,” van Onselen wrote in the Australian.
“That’s how bad the judgment call was. If no one in the PMO [prime minister’s office] tried to stop Abbott knighting Philip that is concerning. If they did, and he refused to listen, that’s even worse.”
The Australian Republic Movement’s national director, David Morris, said membership inquiries had surged after the announcement on Australia Day, on a par with inquiries after Abbott’s announcement last year on reinstating knights and dames.
Membership inquiries jumped from one a day to one a minute for a week after last year’s proclamation, Morris said. He said there had been equally high interest since the news broke of the award to Prince Philip.
“We know by asking communities that people support this issue and now it needs to be a big, bipartisan issue,” Morris said. “We know we will get bipartisanship support when Abbott leaves, because state premiers, frontbenchers, support the idea but we have to be patient while he is still there.
“But at least this knighthood has made people think about the idea and for that we are grateful.”
