Coalition support is lower than it was during the Black Summer bushfires, a study has found.
Just 32.2 per cent of respondents said they would vote for the government if an election was held in January, compared with 35.4 per cent in January 2020.
It is also a sizeable drop from January 2021 at the height of the pandemic, when 40.3 per cent of respondent said they'd vote for the Liberal-National coalition.
Lead author of the Australian National University study Professor Nicholas Biddle said with less than one in three respondents to back the incumbents, things did not look good for the coalition.
"This is significantly lower than the 37 per cent who said they would vote for Labor, who would appear to have been in an election-winning position," he said.
"Those who thought environmental concerns were more serious were more likely to withdraw their support from the coalition government."
Women overwhelmingly support Labor ahead of the coalition, with the study finding 38.8 per cent intend to vote for the opposition and just 28.7 will back the government.
That contrasts with a far tighter race among men, where 35.9 per cent intend to vote for the coalition and 35.2 per cent supported Labor.
Those who said they didn't know who they would vote for rose from 4.1 per cent to 5.9 from last year to this, the study noting a possibility that would shape the final election outcome.
It also found an increase in the belief the government should use strict laws to reduce environmental harm done by industry.
Some 61.6 per cent of respondents said Australia was doing too little to tackle climate change which was a 3.3 per cent increase on last year, although not as high as the 65.2 per cent at the height of the bushfires.
The study notes consistency in Australians' view of the government's role despite the Black Summer and COVID-19 pandemic creating "a unique set of circumstances".
"We find a somewhat surprising level of stability over the period in terms of views on key policy issues ... despite a very large increase in the government's role in the lives of Australians during the pandemic period, we don't find large changes in Australian's views about what the government's role should be or the extent of the government's role," it reads.
But it did find significant declines in people who think it should be the government's role for a number of objectives, including providing a job for everyone who wants one, providing a decent standard of living for the old and promoting equality between men and women.
