Sussan Ley confident she will survive as opposition leader and says door is open to Nationals rejoining Coalition | Coalition

Sussan Ley says her likely leadership rivals Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie remain committed to her position, as speculation grows about an imminent challenge to the embattled Liberal leader.

A day after the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, split the Coalition and said his party would not serve under Ley’s leadership, the opposition leader told Channel Seven on Friday she expected to remain in the top job.

Asked if she would survive as leader, Ley said: “Yes, I will.”

She said she remained open to the possibility of another reconciliation with Littleproud and the Nationals. Senior Liberal sources described Ley’s leadership as all but over on Thursday, after a the second Coalition split in eight months, sparked by a dispute on Labor’s hate speech laws.

“My focus is always on the Australian people, so I just want to say the door is not closed, but my eye is not on the door,” Ley said.

“My eye is on the work that my team has already done over summer in holding the government to account on expenses scandals, on Bondi, dragging, kicking and screaming to a royal commission … ”

In another interview, Ley was asked if she was worried about a challenge from Hastie or Taylor, both conservatives. She said they were “strong, committed members of my team”.

The former Nationals leader Michael McCormack told Guardian Australia it was unfortunate Littleproud had called the Coalition “untenable” under Ley this week.

He said he hoped the two parties would reconcile “sooner rather than later”.

McCormack, a former deputy prime minister, helped reunite the Liberals and Nationals after their short-lived split in May last year and has been a supporter of Littleproud’s leadership.

“I think it’s unfortunate that a comment of that magnitude was made,” he said.

“The Liberal party leadership is a matter entirely for the Liberal party and I would never suggest anything about a Liberal party leader.”

Littleproud dug in on Friday, continuing to blame Ley for the split, and claiming he had tried to “avert it”.

The Nationals leader said it was not up to him to determine who the Liberal leader is, despite his comments yesterday that he would not work with Ley.

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The split followed the Nationals senators Bridget McKenzie, Susan McDonald and Ross Cadell crossing the floor to vote on Tuesday, breaking with the Coalition’s position on the laws drafted after the Bondi terror attack.

Littleproud, who had warned Ley accepting resignations from the trio would spark a walkout by the Nationals, said the party’s door is “open”.

“What I said is that we couldn’t serve in Sussan Ley’s ministry after she accepted the resignation of three senators that shouldn’t have been accepted. There was an avenue not to,” he said.

Ley’s deputy, the shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien, said he expected her to remain leader.

“I know there’s a lot of commentary on this … yes, she will,” O’Brien told ABC radio.

“I support the Coalition coming back together, because it is in the national interest. It is the only way that we can get the nation going back in the right direction.

“But you don’t just form a Coalition without any commitments. There has to be a rock-solid commitment to work together as one team.”

Privately, several Liberal MPs told Guardian Australia they did not want the Coalition to reunite, and said the National party should be “severely punished”.

“On our side, a number of us are saying, that’s it … I was speaking strongly to keep the Coalition together [the last time], but not anymore,” one Liberal MP said.

Another Liberal MP said it would be “reckless and foolhardy” to cave into the Nationals’ demands and replace Ley.

The firebrand conservative senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who moved from the Nationals party room to the Liberals after the election, continued to criticise Ley’s leadership.

“I made it very clear that obviously the leader had lost trust in me, lost faith in me, and I suppose I felt the same at the time,” she told Sky News on Thursday night.

“I don’t feel like things have improved.”

Some Liberals say a challenge is more likely to take place when MPs return to Canberra in the first week of February. A special meeting to consider a leadership spill can be held if two MPs petition the party whip for a vote.