Anger over disunity sparked a confrontation in the Coalition party room on Tuesday when two backbenchers blasted the “sniping” from conservatives including Tony Abbott.

Nationals MP Damian Drum told the room it was a “f---ing disgrace” that so many kept leaking against the government and fuelling the disunity, in a rebuke within an hour of the Liberal leadership spill.

Queenslander Warren Entsch took aim at Mr Abbott for fuelling the division through his constant criticism of policy, citing the former prime minister’s old pledge that he would not undermine the government.

The exchanges highlighted the open conflict over Coalition leadership, policy and philosophical direction just months away from the federal election.

Mr Drum made his comments to the joint meeting of Liberals and Nationals soon after Liberal MPs emerged from their separate meeting where 35 ministers and backbenchers had voted for Peter Dutton.

While the Victorian MP and former Fremantle Football Club coach did not single out any politician for criticism, his comments drew support from others who fear the disunity will take them to defeat at the election due by May.

Mr Entsch, whose support for same-sex marriage put him at odds with Mr Abbott for several years, did not name the former prime minister but pointedly quoted his remarks about unity.

Mr Entsch quoted Mr Abbott’s pledge after losing the leadership in September 2015: “There will be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping.”

He then rebuked those who had called for Mr Turnbull to change direction on climate change policy and then attacked Mr Turnbull for doing exactly this on Monday.

Again, without naming the former leader, Mr Entsch quoted Mr Abbott’s remark on Friday that an initial round of changes to the National Energy Guarantee were “no way to run a government” even though the changes gave critics what they had wanted.

In a wider warning shot to MPs in safe seats who voted for leadership change, Mr Entsch said those who held their seats by 11 per cent should not think they were safe from trouble from the government’s disunity.

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His message to those MPs was that they could leave Parliament after an election loss with their generous pensions but that younger MPs would not be so lucky.

Upset that this exchange was relayed to the media, Mr Abbott issued a brief statement after the party room meeting to attack the leaks against him and air his concerns in public.

“To put the Entsch intervention into context, I had just said to the party room that exhortations from the leadership group about loyalty and unity were all very well but ‘unity has to be created and loyalty has to be earned. They can’t just be demanded’,” Mr Abbott said.

MPs told Fairfax Media that Mr Abbott used the joint party room meeting to urge Mr Turnbull to have a discussion about the lessons from the Longman byelection, where the Coalition primary vote slumped to 29 per cent.

The Prime Minister’s supporters have blamed Mr Abbott for destabilising the government and urged colleagues to remember this when deciding whether to support Mr Dutton because of the ties between the two conservatives.

Amid rumours that Mr Abbott might gain the defence or home affairs portfolios after a leadership change, Mr Dutton refused to rule out putting the former prime minister back in the ministry.

Mr Dutton told Sky News he did not have an acrimonious relationship with Mr Turnbull and had been loyal to Mr Abbott in the past.

Asked if he was Mr Abbott’s puppet, Mr Dutton said: “No, of course not.”