Coalition senators Jacinta Price and Matt Canavan have leapt to the defence of Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, after he turned to Instagram to describe unnamed party colleagues as cowards and muppets for criticising him anonymously.

In the latest social media spat to expose the deep divisions between Liberals over the party’s direction, Hastie copped flack within the party for posting a slick video to social media on Sunday in which he posed in denim next to a red 1969 Ford Falcon, extolling local manufacturing.

On Tuesday, he uploaded an Instagram story expressing his fury that some colleagues had provided anonymous quotes to The Australian urging him to fall in line. “Nameless cowards,” he wrote over a screen grab of the story, adding that his video had been produced by “competen

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