The Coalition has clawed back in front of Labor in the latest essential poll, strengthening its position to 51 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, according to the latest Essential Media poll. Labor had 49 per cent of the vote, down from 51 per cent last week.
The primary vote has the Coalition at 41 per cent, a reasonably consistent result over the past four weeks. Labor’s primary vote meanwhile has dropped to 35 per cent.
“Even in the course of what is a long election campaign neither party is actually increasing their primary vote according to this poll,” Essential Media’s Peter Lewis said.
“So it’s more people looking outside that major party beltway.”
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon’s numbers are up one percent at 4 per cent, while the Greens stayed the same at 9 per cent.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s approval rating has stayed the same at 34 per cent while Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s has gone up slightly from 40 to 41 per cent.
Voters would prefer a beer with Shorten over Turnbull
The poll also asked voters a series of questions about which party leader they’d prefer to do various tasks.
On most questions involving finance, Prime Minister Turnbull outpolled Mr Shorten, while voters preferred the Opposition leader for other matters including help with home renovations.
Most voters (83 per cent) said they’d prefer to ask Mr Turnbull for ‘advice about investing money,’ compared with Mr Shorten (17 per cent).
Mr Turnbull was also trusted to ‘cook a good meal’ with 56 per cent of the votes.
When it comes to who would be more likely to stop and help if their car was stranded though, 64 per cent of voters thought Mr Shorten was the man for the job.
Fifty-four per cent of voters said they'd like to have a beer with Mr Shorten compared with 46 per cent for the Prime Minister.
While Essential Media tried to get a snapshot of the nation, the response rate and coverage of the online polls meant an accurate representation of Australia could not be ensured.
