Prime Minister Julia Gillard denies her office leaked a video showing Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd swearing and losing his temper.
The video of out-takes, taken when Mr Rudd was prime minister, shows a frustrated Mr Rudd slamming the table, cursing and losing his temper.
It was anonymously posted on YouTube over the weekend.
"There have been some assertions today that somehow this is connected with my office. That is completely untrue," Ms Gillard told reporters in Darwin on Sunday.
"My office did not have access to the material people have seen on YouTube."
Mr Rudd said the video was embarrassing, before he flew to Mexico for a meeting of foreign affairs ministers from the Group of 20 nations.
"Anyone who's got a touch of suspicion about them would say that if this was done, somewhat embarrassingly, a couple of years ago and it suddenly emerges now, then obviously it's a little bit on the unusual side," he told Sky News.
Mr Rudd again played down leadership speculation.
"There is no challenge on," he said.
"We have a prime minister, I am the foreign minister."
But independent MP Andrew Wilkie says Mr Rudd canvassed a possible return to the top job in a 90-minute meeting between the pair in Canberra last November.
"We talked about a range of things, including the possibility of him coming back to the prime ministership," Mr Wilkie told Sky News.
He predicted there would be a challenge for the Labor leadership.
"I must confess for a while I thought it was media mischief until I had a 90-minute meeting with Kevin Rudd," Mr Wilkie said.
"Kevin clearly wants the job back. That is entirely understandable."
Mr Rudd said two lessons he had learnt since losing the prime ministership were not to control every aspect in his office and to consult more broadly.
"You would be a mug if you didn't learn something," he said.
The conjecture about the Labor leadership has led Victorian backbencher Darren Cheeseman to warn the party that Ms Gillard's leadership is "terminal".
"Julia Gillard cannot take us to an election," he told Fairfax Media.
"She will decimate the party if she does."
But outgoing Victorian Labor backbencher Steve Gibbons has described Mr Rudd as a "prima donna" and a "psychopath with a giant ego".
Labor ministers went into damage control on Sunday morning, issuing strict warnings for backbenchers.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said the contributions from the Victorian MPs were unhelpful.
"I would counsel them that they should be focused on working in their electorates and reminding people Australia has, by world standards, a miracle economy," she told ABC TV.
Education minister Peter Garrett echoed her call.
"They should be out there prosecuting the case against Mr Abbott," he told Network Ten.
Asked to confirm reports he had switched allegiances to the Rudd camp, Mr Garrett said they were "absolutely wrong".
"Support for the prime minister is something I strongly give," he said.
Mr Garrett slammed the media frenzy that is fuelling leadership speculation.
Mr Wilkie said he would find it easer to work with Mr Rudd than Ms Gillard if the foreign minister return to his previous job.
The anti-pokies MP tore up his agreement to support the Gillard minority government after the prime minister broke her promise on gambling reforms in January.
He said his relationship with Ms Gillard had taken a "battering" since he pulled his support for the Labor government.
"A word has not passed between Julia Gillard and myself since Friday night of January 20," Mr Wilkie told Sky News on Sunday.
Federal opposition frontbencher Eric Abetz said the leaking of the video was another example of Labor deeming itself to be more important than the electorate.
"What it shows is a deeply divided and dysfunctional Labor Party focused on itself and not the needs of Australians," Senator Abetz told Network Ten on Sunday.
