Labor is falling apart with people chasing its key campaign strategist with meat axes and NSW senator Mark Arbib in "witness protection", a Liberal senator says.
Liberal senator Mitch Fifield rejected the notion his own party was starting to unravel.
"I don't think we are tearing ourselves apart on the coalition side of politics; it's clearly Labor that is doing that," Senator Fifield told Sky News on Monday.
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ALP national president Anna Bligh had taken an "almighty swipe" at her federal parliamentary colleagues and Labor strategist Karl Bitar was being targeted, Senator Fifield said.
"You've got people running around with meat axes looking for Karl Bitar," he said.
"You've got Senator Mark Arbib, who is in witness protection program at the moment, being pulled off the Q&A television program," he said in reference to Mr Arbib's last-minute decision not to appear on the show on the orders of caretaker Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
"Labor are in absolute disarray, they are barely keeping it together...."
Labor MP Mark Butler said a campaign that resulted in neither party having an absolute majority was always going to be questioned.
"That's happened on both sides," Mr Butler told Sky News.
"For all of Mitch's bluff and bluster about meat axes and so on, he is unable to point to any member of the parliamentary Labor party who is making any comment other than getting entirely behind Julia Gillard's negotiations with the rural independents, the Greens and Andrew Wilkie from Tasmania."
Senator Fifield said it was important parliamentary colleagues treated each other with respect at such an important and delicate time for the nation.
Of the phone call in which a Liberal allegedly said it was "the devil" calling when independent MP Rob Oakeshott's wife answered the phone, Senator Fifield said: "That all sounds quite unusual and peculiar to me."
As negotiations continued, it was important to try to break the impasse and form a new government as quickly as possible to ensure "... we don't end up in a situation that is in effect groundhog day", he said.
Mr Butler said the proper thing to do was to support a minority government and head back to the polls in three years.
It was clear newly-elected WA Nationals MP Tony Crook would be inclined to side with the coalition and Greens MP Adam Bandt with Labor.
Senator Fifield said he respected Mr Crook's autonomy and mind, but it was clear he would support the coalition because Labor had refused to back down on the mining tax.
