A new poll shows the government lagging behind the Labor Opposition at 49 per cent to 51 – support being dragged down by Malcolm Turnbull’s unfavourable personal showing.

The Fairfax–Ipsos poll says his popularity has dropped 8 percentage points since June and a massive 53 percentage points over the year.

An equal percentage of those polled now either approves or disapproves of the way the Prime Minister is doing his job, giving him a net approval rating of zero.

Worse, Mr Turnbull has slipped sharply on a list of leadership characteristics while Labor leader Bill Shorten has made some improvements.

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.

On the positive side for him, he has opened up his lead as preferred prime minister to 51–30 with 19 per cent undecided.

As well, he leads Mr Shorten on eight of 11 leadership attributes, even though he is trending down on many of them.

Mr Turnbull has dropped 9 per cent in his rating as a “strong leader”, 7 per cent in his “ability to make things happen”, and 6 per cent in the areas of being “competent” and “open to ideas”.

It found support for minor parties has soared to 18 per cent, five percentage points higher than at the July 2 election.

The primary vote of the Coalition is down 6 points to 36 per cent and Labor’s is also down 6 points to 30 per cent. The Greens vote came in at 16 per cent.

The nationwide phone survey of 1403 respondents was conducted from November 24 – 26.