The prime minister and the Speaker’s office appear to be at odds over the burqa ban, after Tony Abbott said he had asked the Speaker to “rethink the decision” while the Speaker’s office suggested that they had received no request to overturn the ban on facial coverings.

“No request has been received by the PM or his office,” a spokesman for the Speaker said at midday.

“I asked the Speaker to rethink the decision,” Abbott said. “My understanding was it was an interim decision, that it would be looked at again the light of security advice that will come in coming days and I am sure the matter will be fully resolved before the parliament comes back in a fortnight.”

Parliament’s presiding officers – Speaker Bronwyn Bishop of the House of Representatives and president of the Senate, Stephen Parry – made an interim ruling on Thursday that people wearing facial coverings, such as the niqab, could watch proceedings only from glass-enclosed public galleries.

It drew widespread condemnation from human rights commissioners, politicians across the divide and the Muslim community.

Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull has condemned the interim ban, warning that “demonising and alienating” the Muslim community was “doing the terrorist’s work”.

Turnbull said in his 10 years in parliament, he had seen one woman wearing a full facial covering in the public gallery.