Roy Morgan Update Feb 27, 2024: ALP & L-NP Support at 50%, Consumer Confidence & Mortgage Stress

In this week's Update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence & Mortgage Stress.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

There’s been a significant change in voting sentiment this week on the eve of the Dunkley by-election. Support for the Labor Government is down 2.5% to 50% on a two-party preferred basis - now even with the Coalition on 50%.

If a Federal Election were held now we’d have a hung Parliament with minor parties and independents deciding who would be our next Government the latest Roy Morgan survey shows.

The big swing against Labor came after asylum seeker boats landed in Western Australia and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton ‘hammered’ the Albanese Government all week over the failures in border protection policies.

There were also significant anti-Semitic protests in Sydney and Melbourne last week that were reflected in big swings against the ALP in New South Wales and Victoria.

And extensive blackouts of hundreds of thousands of people in Victoria due to heavy storms throughout the State.

The mass downing of key energy transmission lines contributed to the wide-spread power outages.

Government Confidence was virtually unchanged for the second straight week at 82.5 - well below the neutral level of 100 because only 34.5% of Australians say the country is heading in the right direction while 52% say the country is heading in the wrong direction.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was also virtually unchanged this week at 83.2.

Consumer Confidence has now spent 56 weeks below the level of 85 – the longest time below 85 in the history of the measurement.

Although the Reserve Bank have not increased interest rates since November, the momentum in mortgage stress and cost of living pressures continues unabated – keeping a lid on Consumer Confidence.

In Victoria, Consumer Confidence recovered somewhat this week, up 2.3 points to 82.5, after American singer Taylor Swift played three packed out shows at the MCG.

This was a recovery from the previous week’s fall of 5 points.

Inflation Expectations were little changed this week, down 0.1% to 5.1%.

Australians now expect annual Inflation to be 5.1% over the next two years.

The longer-term trends show Inflation Expectations have now averaged 5.1% throughout the Summer months since the start of December.

And finally today we take a look at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s ‘gender pay gap’ data released widely today.

Roy Morgan is delighted to report that our ‘gender pay gap’ for ‘median total remuneration’ and ‘median base salary ‘is non-existent – it is 0.0% - we pay everyone equally based on the work they put in.

This result is not a new thing, Roy Morgan has had a ‘median total remuneration’ gender pay gap of 0% for three straight years now.

This result compares favourably to other businesses in our industry comparison group – the ‘Professional, Scientific & Technical Services’.

The average ‘gender pay gap’ in this industry is 29.3% based on ‘median total remuneration’ and slightly better, at 27.3%, for ‘median base salary’.

There is clearly still significant work to do across the industry to close this gap.

For more information on Roy Morgan’s gender pay comparison visit the Roy Morgan website.