Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull faces a tough final week of the parliamentary year. Credit:Andrew Meares An equal percentage of voters now either approves or disapproves of the way Mr Turnbull is doing his job, giving him a net approval rating of zero. Worse still, Mr Turnbull has slipped sharply on a range of important leadership characteristics while his opponent, Bill Shorten, has made some improvements. Mr Abbott, who recently welcomed the victory of US president-elect Donald Trump as "the revenge of the deplorables", also threw a political punch at Mr Turnbull over the last election, saying on Sunday it was good that he had since abandoned talk of innovation and agility because "frankly, that loses people". The dumped former prime minister's provocations will reinforce a belief that Mr Shorten has the greater confidence of his party colleagues. The poll found nearly two thirds of voters believe Mr Shorten is supported by his party but less than half believe that of Mr Turnbull.

A ray of hope for government MPs heading into the summer break is that Mr Turnbull has opened up his lead as the preferred prime minister to 51-30, with 19 per cent undecided. He also leads Mr Shorten on eight of 11 leadership attributes. But in many of those, the trend is negative for Mr Turnbull, with a 9 per cent drop in his rating as a "strong leader", a 7-point drop in his "ability to make things happen", and a 6-point drop in the two areas of being "competent" and "open to ideas". The nationwide phone survey of 1403 respondents was conducted from November 24 to November 26. It found support for minor parties has soared to 18 per cent – that is five percentage points higher than the 13 per cent for crossbench parties and independents at the July 2 election which saw four senators elected for Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, and four parliamentarians elected from the Nick Xenophon Team – all from South Australia.

Senator Xenophon has declared he will not support any government bills this week unless he gets assurances on environmental water allocations for the Murray. That has prompted the Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm to warn that if Senator Xenophon gets that agreement, the government will lose his vote. It needs both. According to the poll, which looks to have overestimated the Greens vote at the expense of Labor, the primary vote of the Coalition is down 6 points to 36 per cent, and Labor's is also down 6 points to just 30 per cent. The Greens vote came in at 16 per cent. At a two-party-preferred share of 51 per cent, the swing towards Labor since the election is calculated at 1.4 per cent which would likely be enough for a change of government had an election been held over the weekend.

The harsh voter reaction comes as Mr Abbott was seen to double-down on his recent indirect messaging to Mr Turnbull about a possible return to the frontbench – this time conveying his job application himself. "I guess it's an issue for him whether I am or am not one of the 23 members of the party room most qualified to be in cabinet," Mr Abbott said, referring to Mr Turnbull. Loading In politically incendiary comments, Mr Abbott used a Sky News interview on Sunday to signal he had serious issues with the performance of the Prime Minister which went to both policy and presentation. Threatening to continue with potentially awkward public statements unless he was necessarily constrained with a cabinet post, Mr Abbott criticised the government for not muscling up against Labor's renewable energy. He also urged a renewed focus on budget repair, calling for a return to measures outlined in his politically toxic 2014 budget.