TONY Abbott today told colleagues frightened of his powerful chief of staff Peta Credlin to avoid her by telephoning him directly.
The Prime Minister offered the advice while making clear he was not going to sack his top adviser, who is being blamed for some of the complaints threatening his leadership.
But he acknowledged, in response to a question about Ms Credlin, that his chief of staff had been a tough office gatekeeper to get past.
“I say to people that my door is open, I am available to people,” Mr Abbott told reporters, referring to his ministerial and back bench colleagues.
“If they are anxious about talking to Person X or about talking to Person Y, talk to me.”
Mr Abbott said he always checked his messages.
He was speaking after getting a big message from two-thirds of his back bench who today voted in favour of a leadership spill. He defeated the spill motion with the numbers from the ministry, but even so some 40 per cent of Liberal MPs wanted a leadership ballot.
Fans of Peta Credlin recognise she is a tough operator but argue that whatever mistakes the Government has made, there have been even bigger ones prevented by the chief of staff.
But her intrusive micromanagement of matters such as appointments to the staffs of ministers and gruff rejection of much advice from other MPs has at times isolated Mr Abbott from his colleagues
