Labor left faction leader Doug Cameron has urged his colleagues to lay off the attacks on Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.
Senator Cameron says Prime Minister Julia Gillard has the support of caucus but there is considerable sympathy for the way Mr Rudd has been treated.
'People are saying that he shouldn't be treated like this, a former prime minister, a former leader of the party,' he told ABC radio.
'Kevin Rudd has got a lot of support in terms of him doing his job and doing it effectively. The gratuitous attacks should stop.'
One of the more vehement attacks on Mr Rudd in the ongoing leadership tensions has come from Regional Development Minister Simon Crean, who said if Mr Rudd couldn't be a team player he should quit and go to the back bench.
Senator Cameron said it was not one of Mr Crean's finer moments.
If Mr Crean was entitled to some flexibility because he was a former Labor opposition leader, Mr Rudd had the same entitlement as a former prime minister who defeated John Howard, he said.
'People need to recognise this and lay off the unnecessary gratuitous attacks,' he said.
Senator Cameron said Ms Gillard was hard working and extremely intelligent.
'She is one of the best politicians in the country. I just simply want her to get on with the job she is doing to prosecute lots of issues like Gonski (school funding review), like the challenges we have got to the manufacturing industry,' he said.
Mr Crean, who led Labor in opposition in 2001-2003, said reports he was positioning himself as a possible compromise leadership candidate were wrong.
The Australian newspaper reported on Wednesday that Mr Crean was being touted by colleagues as a safe pair of hands in the increasingly rancorous leadership row.
'These unsourced and inaccurate claims are nothing more than the continuation of a destabilising campaign which must stop,' he said in a statement.
'I have said repeatedly that I support the Prime Minister and, so there is no doubt, I do so again.'
