Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's government is neck and neck with Labor in the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll.
The poll, conducted over the weekend, put support for the coalition and Labor across the country on a knife edge at 50-50, assuming an allocation of preferences similar to those at the last election, according to Fairfax Newspapers.
Pollster Jessica Elgood said the result is still a good one for Mr Turnbull because Bill Shorten's numbers had hardly moved and "would need to improve significantly to give him a chance of being Prime Minister".
Federal MPs and senators are heading back to Canberra on Monday for the week's special sitting to vote on key legislation to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the registered organisations bill.
Mr Turnbull has effectively placed the timing of the election in the hands of cross bench senators by stipulating that unless those bills pass he will advise Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove to dissolve both houses for a July 2 election.
The latest voter opinion surveys have placed the coalition government on equal footing with or closely trailing Labor, in the two-party preferred stakes.
A Newspoll published in the Australian newspaper puts Labor in the lead over the coalition in two-party preferred terms - 51 per cent to 49. It also measured the coalition's support as dropping by around three percentage points since the March survey.
But, Malcolm Turnbull is defending what he sees as a his government's sound economic performance.
Mr Turnbull told the ABC the coalition's record speaks for itself.
"Last year 300,000 jobs were created. That's the greatest number since 2006. (Journalist: That's down to the government?) This is strong economic growth -- three per cent real GDP growth last month alone. We had the unemployment rate come down -- 26,000 more jobs created. So, if you measure our economic leadership by economic performance, we're not doing too bad a job."
