Women have delivered a swing to the Liberal Party after a bad fortnight for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten diminished the opposition’s vote by one percentage point, according to the Morgan poll.

But an election held today would still see a change of government as the opposition maintains a lead at 53.5 per cent two party preferred against the government’s 46.5 per cent, after a rise of one per cent the poll shows.

Women have swung towards the Liberal party as men put their support behind Labor resulting in a net benefit of one per cent for the government.

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Bill Shorten has been handed some food for thought over the past fortnight.

The male vote favoured Labor by 0.5 per cent to rise to 52 per cent two party preferred, while the female vote rose for the Liberals by 1.5 per cent but was still 55.5 per cent in favour of Labor.

The past two weeks has resulted in a rise of 1.5 per cent for the government’s primary vote to 39 per cent, at the expense of the opposition whose primary vote fell by the same margin to 36 per cent.

The political battle heated up over the past two weeks when the Government ramped up national security rhetoric, introducing a plan to take citizenship from dual nationals suspected of terrorism offences.

The opposition has scored own goals over the period since the previous Morgan poll including a bruising disclosure from Mr Shorten that he lied on radio about his role in the Rudd-Gillard leadership spill of 2013.

The poll asked 3282 Australians over the past two weekends on voter intention, and also queried voters on whether Australia was heading in the right direction – 41.5 per cent said Australia was heading in the wrong direction against 40 per cent who said the opposite.

Among Australian states, only Tasmania offered hope for the party in this poll, as two party preferred votes were even at 50 per cent. In all other states voters leaned towards Labor.