Australians believe the Turnbull government is better than Labor at handling the economy even though opinion polls continue to point to the coalition losing the next election.
The latest Ipsos-Fairfax poll found 38 per cent of the 1400 people surveyed thought the government had the better policies for managing the economy, comfortably ahead of Labor on 28 per cent, while Scott Morrison leads Chris Bowen 38 to 29 per cent as preferred treasurer.
"People are looking at what Bill Shorten is proposing to do and they realise he would leave us all worse off, that it would lead to less growth, to fewer jobs, to lower wages and to less opportunity," Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said on Monday.
But the shadow treasurer says Labor can be accused of all sorts of things but one thing it can't be accused of is being a small target.
"I'm more than happy to have the economic policy debate front and centre at the next election," Mr Bowen said.
"We are not saying it's all easy, we're not saying its all magical like Tony Abbott did ... that's what he did - it all came crashing down within two years."
The coalition has persistently lagged Labor on a two-party preferred basis, and this latest poll putting the opposition ahead 53 to 47 per cent.
Senator Cormann noted there was still a fair way to go before the next election.
"We are working very hard every day to put Australia on the strongest possible economic and fiscal foundation for the future," he said.
The survey comes after last week's national accounts showed the economy rebounding smartly after a slow start to the year.
While wage growth remains at a 20-year low, Mr Morrison is confident salaries will pick-up as company profits improve and employment continues to strengthen.
August employment figures are released on Thursday, which economists expect will show the economy added a further 20,000 jobs, building on the 27,900 increase in July and the 240,000 over the financial year to end-June.
