Scott Morrison has narrowed the gap to Labor in the latest Newspoll but still faces a challenge to bring the coalition's primary vote up.
The Australian published the Newspoll on Sunday night, revealing Labor is leading the two-party preferred vote 51 per cent to 49 per cent with three weeks to go until the federal election.
The result is a marked improvement for the coalition since March, when Mr Morrison's government was down 54-46 on the same measure.
The poll comes after the first two weeks of the election campaign in which Mr Morrison has campaigned heavily on the economy and attacking Labor's tax plans.
But the coalition's primary vote has dropped one point to 38 per cent, while Labor's primary is down to 37 per cent.
Support for One Nation has dropped to four per cent, while the Greens remain on nine per cent and Clive Palmer's United Australia Party has secured five per cent.
Malcolm Turnbull needed a primary vote of 42 per cent to win a one-seat majority in 2016.
Despite the drop in primary vote, Newspoll calculates the coalition has made up ground based on preference flows at recent federal and state elections.
The two-party preferred vote is now back to where it was before Mr Turnbull was forced out of the top job in August 2018.
Mr Shorten has climbed higher in the preferred prime minister stakes, jumping two points to 37 per cent, while Mr Morrison dropped one point to 45 per cent.
The Labor leader has only won one preferred prime minister poll, getting his best result immediately after Mr Turnbull went, before Mr Morrison overtook him.
The two leaders will conduct their first debate of the campaign on Monday night in Perth, before another debate in Brisbane on Friday.
