A week that began with the humiliating departure of Tony Abbott's personal pick for Madam Speaker has ended with another of the Prime Minister's infamous captain's picks – Dyson Heydon –  turning sour.

And along the way, the same sex marriage debate exploded like a glitter bomb on the party room floor, pitting cabinet ministers against each other and against their accident-prone leader.

With Abbott's goodwill stocks already running low, for some of his colleagues at least, things looked even worse.

Tuesday's extraordinary events saw Abbott call a surprise party room meeting to listen to almost 100 of his colleagues give their views on a free vote and same-sex marriage.

After six hours (with only a 30 minute break and no snacks), he decreed that the Coalition had spoken 66 speakers to 33 against a free vote.

But far from drawing a line in the sand on the same-sex marriage issue, it left a mess that's spread out in all directions and which may prove impossible to clean up.

The decision not to grant a free vote (which traditionally has not been decided by a show of hands and can be done at the leader's discretion), has already got a small pack of backbenchers planning to cross the floor and frontbenchers talking darkly of how the Liberal party is no longer liberal.

Leader of the House Christopher Pyne was so angry the Nationals were included in party room discussions, that he sensationally accused the Prime Minister of "branch stacking".

Meanwhile, Abbott's vague pronouncement about a referendum or plebiscite on same-sex marriage has had cabinet ministers in a public debate about the best way forward.

Attorney-General George Brandis and Pyne have been out slapping down Social Services Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Joe Hockey's calls for a referendum, while Malcolm Turnbull has been expressing dismay about the whole show – noting that it guarantees to keep the issue alive (and distracting attention from jobs and the economy) beyond the next election.

One frontbencher simply dismissed the national vote idea as "half-arsed".

"We've never had a cabinet discussion [about this], ministers are out there speculating," another lamented.

"Everyone's thinking aloud."

For some, Abbott's position on same-sex marriage is totally in keeping with his firmly held socially conservative beliefs and his Catholic faith.  As one Liberal staffer observed this week, "the only progressive thing he would support is a progressive barn dance".

But in overseeing the Coalition's denial of a free vote to its MPs, he is also sandbagging his support base. Despite narrowly surviving a "near-death" experience in February, Abbott's leadership is not assured. While the rumblings of dissent are nothing like they were earlier in the year, his recent (mis)handling of the Madam Speaker expenses snafu and woeful polls have kept MPs muttering.

As one senior MP said in the wake of the free vote result, "Tony Abbott's only interest is in maintaining his leadership of the party" and he is doing this by keeping the hard-right right on side.

Along with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce and Women's Minister Michaelia Cash, senior MPs who spoke against same-sex marriage on Tuesday included Senate Leader Eric Abetz, who distinguished himself by noting that Italian fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana don't want to marry, Defence Minister Kevin Andrews, who has written a 500-page book in praise of traditional marriage and family and frontbencher Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who has questioned whether gay people want to stay in monogamous relationships.

Fierravanti-Wells, who has responsibility for multicultural affairs, is emphatic same-sex marriage would be defeated in a national vote.

She says polls which have suggested support for same-sex marriage is as high as 72 per cent are not accurate and that there is a "silent majority" in the community that opposes the change.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Social Services bases this on 30 years of experience with different ethnic and religious communities, who make up such a significant portion of the voting population.

She has done an analysis of the religious and ethnic make-up of seats around the country and used it to warn colleagues against a change. This included seats like Western Sydney's Reid with high Catholic and Islamic populations or Banks, with a high Greek population and low levels of people reporting "no religion".

"This is not going to be an issue within party lines," she told Fairfax Media. "It's either going to be a vote keeper or a vote changer."

They are comments that will hit MPs – already nervy about polling – where it hurts. In the party room meeting, marginal seat holders overwhelmingly tended to not support a free vote. But it also shows that there is more to the same-sex marriage debate than just a question of conscience. There can be canny electioneering too.

Abbott's same-sex marriage manoeuvrings were also supported by a steely chunk of conservative backbenchers.

A couple of months ago, in the wake of the Irish  voting to allow same-sex couples to marry, a small group decided they had to do something. Ireland's 62 per cent "yes" vote gave a huge lift to the marriage equality campaign in Australia, which had already been picking up steam in the first half of the year, with more MPs coming out in favour of the reform and increasing talk about how Parliament would legislate it.

Concerned that the marriage debate was only running one side of the story, Victorian MP Michael Sukkar and ACT senator Zed Seselja organised phone hook ups with other like-minded MPs to work out a fightback strategy. Conservative warrior Cory Bernardi and new Queensland senator Matt Canavan (former chief-of-staff to Barnaby Joyce) were among the group, who met to co-ordinate arguments against same-sex marriage.

The results of their work can be seen in the calls from early June for frontbenchers like Josh Frydenberg and Turnbull to resign if they wanted to "undermine" the Liberal Party's policy of keeping marriage defined as between a man and a woman.

In promoting the "no" cause, the group was also sending a clear message to Abbott that even if the debate seemed to be moving further and further in favour same-sex marriage – after the US Supreme Court decision in late June – the Coalition was not following suit. It also told the PM that for some MPs, it would be an absolute deal breaker to change the government's policy.

But with opinion polls consistently finding majority community support for same-sex marriage and the US, UK, Zealand and Canada all allowing same-sex couples to marry, the Coalition's decision has some scratching their noggins.

NSW Liberal premier Mike Baird backs a free vote, while Liberal opposition leaders in Victoria and South Australia were up in arms about the process this week in Canberra.

Why is the federal Coalition so behind the community and the rest of the developed world on this issue?

One Liberal source lamented that since Peter Costello left Parliament in 2009, Liberal moderates have been without a leader, adding that outspoken and now-retired moderates like Petro Georgiou and Judi Moylan are sorely missed in Canberra.

Another said the Liberal Party had become more conservative since the merger of the Liberal and National parties in Queensland in 2008. But others noted many MPs who argued against a free vote on same-sex marriage and against the reform simply did so because they are "terrified of pre-selectors".

Among supporters of a free vote, there is also a lament that backbenchers spoke before frontbenchers in Tuesday's meeting. This meant that Pyne, Brandis and Turnbull did not have the chance to get in early and ease the fears of junior MPs who may have been wavering.

Those in the anti-camp dismiss this as sore losing. They say Warren Entsch had raised the issue and wanted to talk about it. The PM cleared his scheduled and let everyone who wished have their say in a derriere-numbing meeting. What more could they reasonably want?

When asked to assess the damage bill from the week's events, MPs are hesitant. For one, they say it will take a while for the dust to settle. Others have their eye on the next major opinion polls, due early next week.

At the very least, there is now a rump of the parliamentary party that is very upset and angry that they were outplayed and there is now no chance of legislating same-sex marriage in this parliament.

"So many people are profoundly depressed now," one MP said.

Another Liberal staffer talked of how they were so distressed that their party would be seen to be anti-equality that they couldn't get to sleep on Tuesday night.

In an ominous sign, the Liberal Democrats reported receiving calls from Liberal members who were fed up by the lack of a free vote and wanted to join a new party. Some members sent in pictures of their cut up membership cards, and David Leyonhjelm's Parliament House office even received a visit from a Liberal staffer who wanted an LDP membership form for his "sister".

Closer to the cabinet room, one frontbencher points to Abbott's relationships with Pyne and Brandis. They are two of his closest supports and are vitally important in both the House and Senate. Yet they have been involved in astonishing public and private clashes this week with the PM. A return to business-as-usual and a focus on the economy and jobs when parliament resumes on Monday looks optimistic.

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