At least three government senators say they could support a push to revive changes to race hate laws abandoned last week by the government in a move that will embarrass Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
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Family First senator Bob Day wants to introduce into Parliament the now dropped legislation, which would have replaced section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.
South Australian senator Cory Bernardi has said he will support the bill because it upholds free speech.
"I'm absolutely committed to freedom of speech in this country and if Bob Day wants my support he's got it," Senator Bernardi said.
West Australian senator Dean Smith said he was "strongly considering" supporting Senator Day's revamped legislation.
Queensland Liberal senator James McGrath, a new entrant to the Parliament, is also understood to be "mulling his options".
Senator Day said he was "not surprised" by the show of support from the trio of Liberal senators and said that he would only be surprised if they did not back free speech.
He said the move would get the government "out of a jam" by enabling government senators to back their own legislation.
"I want to help them in what they feel they can't do," he said.
Senator Day said with the legislation "all ready to go" he would seek to introduce it when Parliament resumes at the end of the month.
He said if the government granted Coalition senators a conscience vote that would "be a good start" and signalled he was working to get the support of other crossbenchers.
However, with Labor and the Greens opposed to any change of the current laws, any vote is guaranteed to fail and the move would be largely symbolic.
Mr Abbott promised to repeal section 18c of the legislation as opposition leader after the laws were found to have been breached by News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt in 2011.
But he abandoned the election pledge last week because it has put ethnic communities offside.
