Prime Minister Tony Abbott says his education minister won't be going anywhere after higher education reforms were defeated in the Senate on Tuesday night for the second time in three months.
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In an interview with Fairfax radio station 3AW on Wednesday, Mr Abbott was asked if Christopher Pyne could reasonably call himself "a fixer" after the bill was voted down 34 votes to 30.
"Well, he's already fixed a lot of things in the education area," Mr Abbott replied.
The Prime Minister also ruled out the possibility that Mr Pyne would be moved out of the portfolio or out of negotiating higher education reform.
"He's doing a really, really good job," he said.
"There are many things in this area that are fixed.
"When you look at curriculum for instance we've got the national curriculum on the way.
"When you look at reforms to try to improve teacher quality, that's on the way.
"So there are a lot of very good things that this government has already achieved in this area."
Mr Pyne has been under the spotlight since a grilling on live TV on Monday by Sky News host David Speers, which the Coalition's opponents quickly likened to a comedy sketch from the ABC's Clarke and Dawe.
During the interview, Mr Pyne explained the government's backdown on how its higher education reforms would be put to the Senate.
"I've fixed it. I'm a fixer... I've fixed it by funding it in another way which you'll find out in the budget," he said.
"Why can't you tell us?" asked Mr Speers, to which Mr Pyne replied: "I want it to be a surprise for you."
Mr Abbott said Mr Pyne had successfully mobilised support for the reforms, including among Labor figures such as the former education minister John Dawkins and former Queensland Labor Premier Peter Beattie.
Mr Abbott said the government would resubmit the legislation and would begin talking to senators about what they needed to pass the reforms.
"We're happy to talk to the crossbenchers and even the Labor Party about what further changes they might need," he said.
He said the government wanted to "liberate" Australian universities "to be the very best they can be."
But Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm said on Wednesday that if it had been another minister negotiating with the crossbench the government might have got more votes.
"Christopher Pyne's an affable guy, I get on very well with him at a personal level," he said.
"My impression is he hasn't applied himself to the cross benchers as enthusiastically as a couple of other ministers.
"My impression is if this had been handled by maybe one or two other ministers - and I won't name them at the moment -they might have got another one or two votes out of it."
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie said Mr Pyne "got it wrong" and called on university leaders to "stand up and tell us what they really want".
"I simply believe that Malcolm Turnbull should be prime minister," she said.
"I actually believe that some of these policies that they want to put forward, he'll be able to neutralise some of them and reinvent them and come up with something that has some common sense attached to it."
