Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has tried to distance herself from a leak of former leader Peter Dutton’s scathing assessment of rebel MP Andrew Hastie as demoted senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price called on Ley to stop the Coalition looking like a “clown show”.

Ley called a meeting of shadow ministers in Canberra on Monday night after this masthead reported earlier in the day that Dutton had been highly critical of Hastie’s work ethic and policy development in his submissions to the party’s review of the May election drubbing, while immigration spokesman Paul Scarr spoke out for the first time since Hastie’s resignation.

Some MPs blamed Ley’s allies for leaking information that cast Hastie, a self-described leadership aspirant, in a bad light.

The news fuelled another bout of Coalition an

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