Labor maintains election winning lead over Coalition, with party on 53% of two-party preferred measure and Coalition on 47%

Most Australians want an audit of MPs to identify dual citizens – Guardian Essential poll

A majority of Australians think there needs to be a full audit of federal parliamentarians to identify dual citizens, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

The new survey shows 59% of the sample think there needs to be a review of all members of parliament to identify people who might be dual citizens, while 25% say an audit is not needed.

The poll of 1,776 voters follows weeks of political controversy over the dual citizenship of several prominent MPs, including three Turnbull government ministers, Barnaby Joyce, Fiona Nash and Matt Canavan – an imbroglio that will drag on for months.

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The data suggests the issue is not only disrupting politics but dividing the country. Asked whether they thought dual citizens should be allowed to be members of parliament, 41% said yes and 40% said no, with 18% saying they didn’t know.

The voters who were most likely to think it was OK to be a dual citizen, despite the constitutional prohibition, were Coalition supporters (53%) and people with university-level education (49%).

People opposed to the idea were predominantly Labor voters (49%), people intending to vote for someone other than the major parties (54%) and people aged between 45 and 54 (50%).

The sample showed a similar split when people were asked whether or not ministers caught up in the controversy should step aside until their cases are heard by the high court.

Labor has raised concerns that ministers continuing on in their posts when there is a question about whether they have been validly elected to parliament could trigger legal actions, with interest groups challenging the validity of ministerial decision making.

Those concerns have been validated by constitutional law experts, who argue the ministers involved in high court cases should be cautious. But the government has been intent on projecting business-as-usual.

The sample was split on ministers staying or going with 41% saying ministers should step down and 40% saying they shouldn’t – 59% of Labor voters were in favour of the standing down option and 59% of Coalition voters said they should stay where they are.

While a clear majority favoured an audit of all MPs – a course of action supported by the Greens and some crossbenchers – survey respondents most supportive of the concept were other party voters (68%) and people aged over the age of 65 (79%).

The new weekly survey has Labor maintaining its election winning lead over the Coalition, with the ALP on 53% of the two-party preferred measure and the Coalition on 47%.

The two-party preferred result is the same as last week and it is in line with all other major public opinion polls, except the YouGov survey, which last week had the Coalition in front.

The Greens are up one point to 10%, the Nick Xenophon Team is steady on 3% and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is also steady on 8%.

In addition to this week’s citizenship questions, voters were asked questions about the fairness of the tax system, about Hanson’s decision to wear a burqa into the Senate during the last parliamentary sitting week and they were also asked to rate the best governments over the past 10 years.

On the best government question, voters put Kevin Rudd at the top of the list and Tony Abbott at the bottom. The Turnbull government ranked ahead of Julia Gillard’s government.

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In the ratings question, 32% said Rudd’s government was the best, 26% selected Turnbull, 22% selected Gillard and 20% Abbott – with 37% of the sample saying Abbott’s government was the worst government of the decade.

Opinions lined up with partisan preferences, with 90% of Labor voters selecting either Rudd or Gillard and 86% of Coalition voters selecting either Turnbull of Abbott.

The Greens liked Labor governments but voters supporting politicians other than the major parties split in both directions – 34% preferred Abbott’s Coalition government and 30% selected Rudd’s Labor government.

Voters were asked whether the tax system was fair or unfair, with 51% saying it was unfair and 40% saying fair. This result shows a small shift in favour of thinking the tax system is fair since the question was asked last April.

Survey respondents remain perturbed about tax avoidance by large corporations and by wealthy individuals, with 60% saying they are bothered a lot by the feeling that some corporations don’t pay their fair share, and 53% reporting the same feelings towards wealthy people not paying their fair share.

Labor has policies that have the effect of increasing the top marginal tax rate to 49.5% and the opposition is also proposing to curb deductions claimed by wealthy people – policies that informed a swingeing critique by the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, last week that Labor was intent on inflicting socialism on a generation too young to remember the fall of the Berlin wall.

There was also a question this week about Hanson’s burqa stunt – 39% of the sample approved and 38% disapproved.

People intending to vote for someone other than the major parties approved (67%), while Coalition voters were more likely to approve (46%) than disapprove (32%).

Older people were also more likely to support Hanson’s behaviour, while a majority of Labor (51%) and Greens voters (63%) disapproved.