(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s center-right Liberal National coalition government is still trailing the opposition in polling as the federal election campaign entered its final week.   

The center-left Labor Party continued to lead in the primary vote even as it slipped by one point to 38% against the government’s unchanged 35%, a new opinion survey by Newspoll published by The Australian newspaper on Saturday showed. Labor still enjoyed a steady and comfortable lead of 54% to 46% in the two-party-preferred vote. 

The results indicate Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal National coalition government needs to do more to retain power, starting with his official campaign launch scheduled Sunday. 

Labor leader Anthony Albanese also further closed in on Morrison as the country’s preferred leader, with 42% support to Morrison’s 43%.

Labor has led the government in opinion polling for most of the campaign, a lead that will have a material effect given early voting opened Monday. Such voting accounted for 41% of the total cast in the 2019 election.

The poll surveyed 1,532 people across the country, the newspaper said, and was conducted between May 10 and May 13.

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