Voter support for the federal government has risen by three percentage points in three weeks, according to the latest Newspoll.
The poll, published in the Australian, comes before parliament sitting on Monday for the final sitting weeks in the lead-up to the budget due on 9 May.
It shows the Coalition is sitting on 48% of the two-party-preferred vote against Labor’s 52%. That’s higher than the February poll, which showed the Coalition on 45% and Labor on 55%.
Meanwhile, the Coalition’s primary vote has grown from 34% to 37%, while Labor’s has dropped from 37% to 35%.
Malcolm Turnbull remains the preferred prime minister over the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, at 43% to 29% respectively.
The Newspoll of 1,819 voters, taken between Thursday and Saturday, also shows primary voting support for One Nation remains at 10%, despite the fallout from the Western Australian election in which that state’s Coalition government lost to Labor.
The Australian Greens, in contrast, were down one percentage point to 9%.
The result comes after a week in politics dominated by energy policy that saw Turnbull unveil plans for an expansion of the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme and a bizarre clash between the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, at a media conference in Adelaide.
Meanwhile, a Reachtel poll of 12 Coalition seats published by Fairfax Media, shows more than half of all voters in those electorates support marriage equality.
In the poll, commissioned by Australians for Equality, voters in Bowman, Brisbane, Cook, Fisher, Goldstein, Moncrieff, New England, Pearce, Petrie, Robertson, Swan and North Sydney were asked their views on same-sex marriage.
The majority of voters in those also agreed that it was “very important” that a same-sex marriage bill be put to a parliamentary vote this year. This result leaves Coalition MPs, who continue to support a plebiscite as the only means to decide the issue, out of step with constituents.
The Newspoll findings contrast with those of the Essential poll published last week by Guardian Australia, in which support for both major parties continued to fall.
The Liberal party’s primary vote dropped 2% and Labor dropped 1% in the Guardian Essential poll, with Labor continuing to lead the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis by 53% to 47%.
The online Essential survey, conducted between 10 and 13 March, also found support for both Turnbull and Shorten sliding, while One Nation support climbed two percentage points to 11%, with a smaller rise (1%) for other minor parties and independents. The Greens stayed steady on 9% and Nick Xenophon and the National party were both steady at 3%.
Essential also found Turnbull leading Shorten as preferred prime minister by 38% to 26%.
• Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
