The man considered most likely to break away from the Liberal Party says only one person is talking about a split: Tony Abbott.
The former prime minister has urged "rebellious" conservative colleagues not to leave the Liberals and risk delivering government benches to Labor.
Instead, he says it's better to "stay in and fight", in a message clearly aimed at conservative senator Cory Bernardi and other backbenchers.
"If we think the party is headed in the wrong direction or is making a big mistake, our duty is to try to fix it, not to leave it," Mr Abbott wrote in The Australian on Friday.
"Any abandonment of the party would be a catastrophic mistake."
He later told radio 2GB there were "cross-currents" within the party and urged colleagues to think twice, not make a bad situation worse.
"The conservative instinct is to fix things, not to junk them," he said.
But Senator Bernardi hit back at Mr Abbott, questioning his motives.
"While most on break only person talking up division in Lib Party this past week is @TonyAbbottMHR. Always back the horse named self-interest," the South Australian senator tweeted.
Rumours have heated up in recent months the conservative firebrand is preparing to start his own party.
Speculation was further fuelled by revelations Senator Bernardi's Conservative Leadership Foundation has registered a website for a political group called Australian Majority, after his Australian Conservatives network boasted it had signed up 60,000 people since July and promised "a massive 2017".
Former speaker Bronwyn Bishop, who was dumped in April as the Liberal Party's candidate for her long-held seat, said Mr Abbott's article was unhelpful because it just added "fuel to chat".
"It's a broad church, I'd like to see it stay that way and continue to work," she told Sky News of the party.
Cabinet minister Scott Ryan echoed the broad church mantra, saying the party's culture of internal debate was one of its great strengths.
"I don't think there are wings in the Liberal Party. I think there are individuals with liberal views on some things and conservative views on others," he told reporters in Melbourne.
Senator Ryan urged his colleagues to heed the lessons of history, in particular the 1987 "Joh for Canberra" campaign that split the coalition and saw Labor elected with an increased majority.
