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EXCLUSIVE

Malcolm Turnbull with Mike Baird at Coogee Beach last year. Photo: Dean Sewell

The NSW Liberal Party has risked reigniting leadership tensions within the federal party by using Malcolm Turnbull in a last-minute push to shore up votes in marginal seats.

Fairfax Media has learned that voters in the state electorates of Coogee and Blue Mountains received recorded telephone messages known as a "robocall" - from Mr Turnbull on Tuesday night.

A Facebook user in the Blue Mountains complained: "As I was just typing that I just got a recorded message from Malcolm Turnbull telling me to vote for my local Liberal. I got one from Mike Baird last week. Don't appreciate that tactic."

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The calculated use of Mr Turnbull by the state party is a potential embarrassment for Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has been kept largely off the campaign trail except for a non-speaking role at the Liberal campaign launch over the weekend.

A Liberal Party operative warned before the campaign proper that Mr Abbott was "toxic" in cosmopolitan Liberal seats such as Coogee.

On Wednesday, a state Liberal source said: "If Turnbull was the [federal] leader we would be leading in Coogee, there's no doubt about that and Blue Mountains probably fits into the same category."

But the same source insisted the use of the Communications Minister was no slight on Mr Abbott.

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Liberals snub Tony Abbott by wheeling out Malcolm Turnbull for assault on marginal state seats