The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has weighed in on a drama unfolding on the country’s beaches, declaring that beachgoers who use portable cabanas to claim a patch of sand are going against the nation’s spirit of equality.

Asked about the practice on morning television on Tuesday, Albanese said it was “not on”.

Australia’s beaches are typically open to all, meaning that unlike in some other countries, the public do not have to fork out to reserve a spot to relax.

But as the country baked through another sweltering January, with temperatures exceeding 40C (104F) in some parts, some wondered if a proud Australian tradition was under threat.

Debate flared online after photos emerged and were then shared in a News Corp story, showing rows of cabanas – a portable shade structure – apparently being used to reserve prime spots at a beach on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

Beachgoers were reportedly arriving early in the morning to set up their cabanas, chairs and towels before leaving and returning to the space later in the day.

“One of the great things about Australia, unlike some parts of the world, [where] you go and you’ve got to pay to go to the beach, here, everyone owns the beach,” Albanese said.

“Everyone. And it’s a place where every Australian is equal. And that’s a breach of that principle, really, to think that you can reserve a little spot as just yours.”

In 2020, a proposal to turn part of Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach into a private “Euro beach chic” club – aimed at surgeons, bankers and models – was knocked back by the local council. The mayor of the neighbouring Inner West council called public beach access “a democratic and egalitarian principle that should never be compromised”, and a petition opposing the plan drew thousands of signatures.

In a statement explaining the decision, a spokesperson from Sydney’s Waverley council said, “Our beaches and parks are public open spaces, for the enjoyment of everyone.”

Christian Barry, a moral philosopher at the Australian National University, said this week’s debate over cabana usage spoke to how Australians viewed the concept of a “fair share of a common resource” – in this case, the beach – or behaviour that suggested an entitlement to “special treatment”.

“I think that what people are objecting to is the idea that people are taking more than their fair share.

“That is a core value – not taking more than your fair share or holding yourself up for special treatment relative to others when it comes to a commonly held resource,” Barry said.

“There are lots of good things about having such [shade] structures: they focus on protection, they allow families to spend longer at the beach than they otherwise would.

“They become unpopular when the use of them starts to impinge on other people’s fair use of that resource.”