Anthony Albanese is seeking to staunch the flow of voters to One Nation by tackling their economic pain through the Budget’s “hard decisions”, invoking a Clinton-era catchphrase as senior Liberals caution it could take their party as long as a year to turn things around.

As the third poll in a week shows the minor party overtaking both the Coalition and now Labor on its primary vote, both major parties were working out how to deal with the shift.

The Prime Minister tried to focus on a positive vision for Australia’s future.

He declared Australia was already great — an echo of the Donald Trump slogan “make America great again” that has been seized upon for One Nation merchandise — and said he understood that many people did feel the system wasn’t working for them and were looking for alternatives.

“To paraphrase, it’s the economy, stupid. It’s always the economy that sets the parameters for debate,” he said when asked if financial stress among young Australians was behind the rise in the extreme right and left. The phrase was coined by Democrat strategist James Carville in 1992.

“Which is why the argument that says that having delivered our commitments in our first year of our second term, we should sit back and coast for the next two, was one that I wasn’t prepared to support.”

One Nation was the first choice for 31 per cent of people in the Newspoll published on Monday, ahead of Labor on 30 per cent and the Coalition on 18 per cent.

Labor’s primary vote has gradually edged downwards from 33 per cent in February, while the Coalition’s has oscillated between 18 and 21 per cent in the Newspoll survey.

Last week, a Redbridge poll also put One Nation’s primary vote ahead of both major parties, as did a YouGov survey for Sky News.

The Coalition has now slipped to the same disastrously low point that led to former Liberal leader Sussan Ley losing her job to Angus Taylor and, shortly afterwards, David Littleproud making way for Matt Canavan in the Nationals.

However, Mr Taylor’s personal ratings were an improvement on Ms Ley’s standings.

In February, several party members spoke out against the party’s first female leader after its primary dropped to the same low of 18 per cent.

Frontbencher James Paterson cited the polls as the main reason for resigning his position as shadow finance minister.

At the time — in remarks reminiscent of Malcolm Turnbull setting a benchmark of 30 Newspoll losses — he said the polling translated to “more than 200,000 votes a month, it’s more than 50,000 votes a week, it’s more than 7000 votes a day”.

Shadow minister James McGrath said on Monday that it would take time to turn things around.

He cautioned his colleagues against being spooked.

“This is not going to be something to pop in the microwave, and 30 seconds later … you’re leading in the polls. This is going to be a long-term six-to-12-month job,” he said.

“No one is voting today. We need to spend the next period of time going: Labor are failing for these reasons, and these are our policy solutions.

“There is a big difference between being a party of government, which the Coalition are, and being a smaller party, which is very easy to try and govern by bumper stickers.”

Nationals frontbencher Kevin Hogan had a similar message for colleagues and the public.

“We will be a credible voice, and … I think we will get back the faith and the trust of the Australian public over that time (before the next election),” he said.

Mr Albanese said he respected the Australian people and their judgement.

“Quite clearly … many people feel that the system isn’t working for them, that they’re working for the economy, not the economy working for them, that they’re working hard, struggling to save, can’t get their own roof over their head,” he said.

“(This) was the backdrop of the decisions, hard decisions that we made on the Budget.

“I certainly want a great Australia, and I think that’s what we’ve got.”

Senior minister Tanya Plibersek also insisted the Government had heard the message.

“We get it. We know that the system has not been working. Unfortunately, One Nation’s not the answer to that,” she told Sunrise.

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said the polling should confirm to Labor “what trouble you are in”.

“That polling is the sentiment of the people,” he said on Monday morning.

“Even though you’ve got 489 support staff and the Liberal Party got 89 support staff, we have merely four with six people in the Parliament and they’re still giving us the polling, they’re giving because they’re so underwhelmed by what you do, they’re underwhelmed by the fact that you lied to them before the Budget and then did something completely different so they can’t trust you.

“They feel that their life just does not change.”