Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey is backing Tony Abbott to take the coalition to the election despite polling showing the party would do better with Malcolm Turnbull as leader.
The coalition would convincingly beat Labor at the upcoming federal election with Mr Turnbull at the helm, a Network Seven poll - released on Friday - shows.
The survey also suggests Mr Turnbull would be more popular than Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister.
Responding to the poll on Friday morning, Mr Hockey defended Mr Abbott's leadership.
"Tony Abbott is the man, will be the man, will continue to be the man," Mr Hockey told Seven.
"You can have whatever polls you want but the bottom line is we don't want to follow the path of the Labor Party which has selected Kevin Kardashian as leader."
Mr Hockey said he wasn't focused on polling.
"Our view is that you need to have someone who is going to be of substance and focused on the job at hand," he said.
"Malcolm Turnbull says that, I say that."
The latest downbeat data for Mr Abbott follows Monday's Nielsen poll showing the ALP's primary support up 10 percentage points to 39 per cent compared to the coalition on 44, down three.
That poll's two-party preferred numbers put Labor at 50 per cent, with the opposition also on 50 - the first time in three years that Labor no longer trails the coalition on that metric.
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