Roy Morgan Update October 10, 2023: The Voice, Consumer Confidence & Unemployment

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on The Voice, Consumer Confidence & Unemployment.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

And this week we have real unemployment and Roy Morgan’s latest read on ‘The Voice’ referendum – being held this weekend that shows signs of a swing back to ‘Yes’ – and the latest key weekly indicators.

In December last year Australians supported establishing an ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament’ – known by most as “The Voice”.

Roy Morgan research showed 53% ‘Yes’.

In mid-April and late May, support dropped to 46% and down to 37% in late September, just a week ago before voting started.

The latest read from surveying conducted up until Sunday shows undecided dropping as people who were previously uncertain start to make up their minds.

45% of Australians say they’d vote ‘Yes’ or were leaning towards Yes – up 8% points from a week ago.

50%, say they’d vote ‘No’ or were leaning towards No, up 4%, leaving only 5% really ‘Undecided’.

As many of you will have seen on Sunday night on Channel 7’s Spotlight program – Roy Morgan recruited an audience of almost 50 undecided voters in Sydney to react second-by-second as four prominent indigenous Australians shared their views on ‘The Voice’.

Senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Lidia Thorpe advocated for the ‘No’ case and Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and Ray Martin advocated for the ‘Yes’ case.

After the conversation the move among these undecided voters was more ‘No’ than ‘Yes’.

View the program which provided an interesting insight into how undecided voters are thinking about ‘The Voice’ referendum.

And now to the Key Weekly Indicators.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll shows ALP support has increased this week, up 1% point to 53% with the Coalition on 47% on a two-party preferred basis.

This week Government Confidence has recovered this week, up 6 points to 84.5; still way below neutral – with only 33.5% saying the country is heading in the right direction and almost half, 49%, saying the country is going in the wrong direction.

There was better news on the consumer front with Consumer Confidence up 1.9 points to 80.1 this week.

This is the first time ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence has been above the mark of 80 for over seven months since mid-February.

The indicators that improved the most this week related to personal financial situations compared to a year ago and looking forward over the next 12 months.

Inflation Expectations were down 0.1% points to 5.1% this week.

Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 5.1% over the next two years. That’s in line with the average Inflation Expectations we have seen over the last four weeks.