Labor senators have opened fire on Federal Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash over her involvement in controversies surrounding a food health star-rating website.

A furore has unfolded in the weeks since a new website went online for just twenty-four hours. The website was intended to help people work out the relative healthiness of the foods they eat.

The site was taken down, and it has since been revealed its removal was requested by the Assistant Health Minister’s senior adviser, Alistair Furnival.

The reasoning given for withdrawing the website was that the Government wanted to carry out further cost-benefit analysis.

Mr Furnival was the chairman and continues to hold shares in the lobbying group Australian Public Affairs (APA), which argues in favour of several companies and food products with dubious or minimal health benefits.

Mr Furnival resigned from his government role this week, saying he hoped it would end a “political attack” he sees as “a distraction from the important health issues”.

The resignation led Labor members to ask Senator Nash about her involvement in the intervention, which saw the health star-rating site brought down after just a day online.

Senator Nash had told the Senate that her chief-of-staff maintained no links to APA, despite being the former chairperson and being married to the lobby’s founder. Nash returned hours later to tell the chamber Mr Furnival in fact retained a shareholding.

“When I went back to my office and reflected on the comments that I'd made to the Senate I recognised that I did need to provide additional information,” she said.

Opposition health spokesperson Catherine King accused Senator Nash of “engaging in a debate about semantics in order to protect herself”, calling on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to “consider the case”.

“Did she declare the issue she was supposed to declare, and what has happened between her office and the Prime Minister's office,” MP Catherine King asked.

“Why did the minister decide to intervene?”

“I am not commenting on any discussions I've had with the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister's office,” Senator Nash said, in reference to allegations she has offered her own resignation.

Pressed on the issue late yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he considered the matter over.

“All the decisions that Senator Nash has made are eminently justifiable and I support them... the short answer is I had no such conversation with her and this matter is at an end,” Mr Abbott said.

Meanwhile, a self-confessed “fat” North Queensland MP says Australians do not need health advice, or the government intervening on their right to eat icecream.

“I carry weight, I am actually fat. It's not the Government that makes me fat, I make me fat,” Liberal National Queensland MP Ewen Jones told the ABC.

“I don't need a government to come and tell me that what I'm eating is wrong.

“When I'm opening up a tub of ice-cream, I'm not looking at the rating, I'm not opening it because it's low-calorie, low-fat or because it's good for me... I'm opening it up because it's chock-a-block full of chocolate,” he said.