Senior Liberal Josh Frydenberg has warned Labor leader Bill Shorten to not get carried away with another favourable poll or risk embarrassing himself.
Labor has held on to its 54-46 lead over the government on a two-party preferred basis in the latest Newspoll - the third in a row - published in The Australian on Monday.
The coalition's primary vote dropped from 36 to 35 per cent, while the number of people dissatisfied with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull grew from 56 to 59 per cent.
Support for Labor remained steady at 37 per cent.
But Mr Turnbull retains his 41-33 per cent lead as preferred prime minister over Mr Shorten, who also had a slip in his satisfaction rating among voters.
It comes on the back of a tough week for the Turnbull government, with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Nationals deputy leader Fiona Nash booted from parliament by the High Court over their citizenship status.
There were also calls for Employment Minister Michaelia Cash to resign after one of her advisers admitted to tipping off media about federal police raids on the offices of the Australian Workers Union.
The events overshadowed what was meant to be a second week of spruiking the national energy guarantee, a policy aimed at cutting Australians' power bills.
But Mr Frydenberg says the "shenanigans" in parliament this past week shouldn't distract from the government's achievements.
The prime minister is doing an "outstanding job" and is the right person to the lead the Liberal Party.
"Let's not forget that Bill Shorten, embarrassingly for him, did a victory lap after the last election," the energy minister said in Jerusalem on Sunday (local time), following a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum with Veterans' Affairs Minister Dan Tehan.
"I think he'd be best advised to not repeat that mistake again."
Mr Tehan brushed off the Newspoll figures, saying the next election was still 18 months away.
"We've got a full agenda that we have to implement the next year and a half and that's what we're hell bent on doing," he said.
Mr Turnbull, delayed by the High Court decision, is due to arrive in Israel on Monday afternoon local time (late Monday night AEDT), two days later than originally planned.
