Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg concedes there is a “mountain to climb” for the Coalition to win the election following a disastrous Newspoll.

The Newscorp survey of Australian voters shows the Coalition is trailing Labor by 56 per cent to 44 per cent on the two-party preferred vote.

Scott Morrison remains preferred Prime Minister, but the Opposition’s Anthony Albanese is only two points behind.

Neil Breen said the poll “had to be worrying” for the government.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it was a challenging time for many Australians.

“Certainly there is a lesson, or a message in this poll, and that is that Australians continue to face significant challenges with COVID, and many saw their summers disrupted by Omicron and that is frustrating, nearly 2 years into the pandemic.”

Neil said Australians felt the federal government had botched the vaccine rollout, despite Australia’s high vaccination numbers as well as the rollout of rapid antigen tests.

“I acknowledge that it has been challenging for people, but I point them to where we are right now,” he said.

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong, we have performed better than nearly any other economy around the world.”

He said the poll reminded them of the “mountain they have to climb between now and election day”.

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