The poll shows the Liberal-National Coalition has failed to make a dent in Daniel Andrews' Labor government's standing, which sits at 52 per cent to 48 per cent, after preferences, the same margin which won the November 2014 election.

The Newspoll, published on Thursday morning by News Corp, comes after a blitz of policy announcements over summer from Opposition leader Matthew Guy and his colleagues, aimed at positioning the Liberals as the party of law and order in the state.

The result underlines how much ground the Coalition must make up if it is to take the eight seats it needs to form government when the state votes for real in November.

Labor's primary vote, at 37 per cent, has hardly budged from the 2014 election, according to the pollsters, when it was 38.1 per cent.

Coalition primary support has slipped in the same period from 42 per cent on election night in 2014 to 39 per cent in the Newspoll.

Liberal strategists will take a glimmer of comfort from the 65 per cent of surveyed voters who said that Labor should do more to "reduce gang violence" and the 42 per cent who said the Liberals would be best at managing law and order.

But elsewhere in the survey, the news was nearly all bad for the Opposition; Daniel Andrews, who Liberal planners believe is one of Labor's key weaknesses, has improved his satisfaction ratings from 40 per cent, in the previous Newspoll in November 2016, to 46 per cent in the most recent survey.

Mr Guy's approval rating has improved slightly in the same period, from 34 to 36 per cent but he still trails Mr Andrews by a considerable margin.

In the 'better premier' stakes though, Mr Guys's ratings have improved steadily from 24 per cent support in the June 2015 Newspoll to 30 per cent in the most recent survey while Mr Andrews has gone backwards from 48 per cent to 41 per cent.