CANBERRA, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Just one in five Australian voters believed Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten are the best choices to lead their respective political parties to the next election, the latest Essential poll revealed on Tuesday.
When asked which MP would make the best leader of the governing Liberal Party, just 20 percent responded with the current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was the second most popular choice with 17 percent, while 46 percent of respondents said either "someone else" or that they "don't know."
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott - who was ousted by Turnbull in September 2015 - received 10 percent of the vote, up 1 percent compared to March last year.
Meanwhile leader of the nation's other major political party, Labor, Bill Shorten was equally poorly supported; he received just 21 percent of the overall vote as preferred Labor leader, but received 46 percent of the vote among Labor voters.
Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek was the next best supported candidate with 13 percent overall, while 51 percent of Australians were unsure who would be best option to lead the opposition to the next election.
Overall, the Labor opposition maintained a slender lead over the government in the two-party preferred vote. Labor received 53 percent of the vote to the Liberal National Party (LNP) coalition's 47 percent - just as it was last week.
Before preferences, both Labor and the coalition received 37 percent of the vote, while the Greens received 9 percent, One Nation had 9 percent and other minor parties had 8 percent of the overall support.
