Prime Minister Julia Gillard appears to be losing her sheen in the money department as new data released by Newspoll showed that Australians now lean heavier on the Coalition bet, Tony Abbott, as the better economic manager.

The latest Newspoll survey published by The Australian on Monday placed Ms Gillard second only to the Opposition Leader, with the latter enjoying a nine-point margin over the embattled Labor leader.

From the 49 percent preference that Aussies handed to her in August last year, Ms Gillard saw support for her economic agenda shrinking by 14 percent to 34 percent, Newspoll said.

Abbott, on the other hand, gained by as much as three full points from last year's 40 percent to his present 43 percent.

Analysts viewed the new survey, conducted on Saturday, as a form of alarm for the Australian Labor Party, which prides itself for steering the Australian economy out of trouble during the height of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Ms Gillard, along with Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, have been mostly unabashed in highlighting their economic credentials that they claimed provided a blanket of protection to the local economy at a time when recessions were being battled by many economies around the world.

And in the aftermath of the GFC, Swan even won accolades for his deft execution of Labor's economic policy but the latest poll now suggests that his Liberal counterpart, opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey, is fast-gaining on him.

While Swan still leads over Hockey, Newspoll said that the Labor frontbencher merely holds a hairline command of one percent, holding Hockey at bay with his precarious 38 percent to that of the Liberal's 37 percent.

Analysts credited the Coalition turnaround on controversial economic measures implemented by Ms Gillard, foremost of which is the carbon pricing initiative that would require polluters to pay more taxes as they increase their carbon emission.

Also, the Labor government's inability to stem rate hikes being imposed by giant local banks, despite the central bank's easing policy rates, was pinpointed by experts as one major issue working against Ms Gillard and her economic policy-makers.

However, Senior Cabinet Minister Greg Combet said on Monday that the new survey is not reflective of the economic gains achieved by the Labor-led government and stressed that the alternative, the Coalition, seems unable even to offer anything concrete about the economy.

In an interview with ABC, Combet suggested that the Coalition was wholly unsure of its economic agenda when elected while the current government remains adamant on delivering a budget surplus by 2013.

He described the Liberal economic program as "nothing less than a complete shambles."

Buoyed by the rising confidence shown to him by the public, Hockey pointed to the Newspoll survey as testament to the frustration and fear now looming over many Australians especially after the Big Four have decided to increase their rates following the pause deliberated last week by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

"The fact of the matter is this is a Treasurer (Swan) that is not on top of his brief and Australians are paying the price," Hockey told The Australian.

"If the banks have funding problems at the moment then it is up to the Treasurer to be on top of that and to deal with it," Hockey added.