Roy Morgan Update April 16, 2024: ALP Support drops, Consumer Confidence & Inflation Expectations

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

Support for the Coalition has strengthened in mid-April, up 0.5% to 51% on a two-party preferred basis and narrowly ahead of the ALP on 49% according to the latest Roy Morgan Poll.

This is the first time the Coalition has led in the Roy Morgan Poll for two straight weeks since the 2022 Federal Election.

The extension of the youth curfew in Alice Springs for another week (it finally ends this week) and the discussion about the asylum seekers arriving by boat in Western Australia have both hurt the Albanese Government in recent weeks.

The interviews for this Roy Morgan Poll were largely taken before the horrific Bondi Junction knife attack on the weekend and before Foreign Minister Penny Wong suggested Australia could recognise a Palestinian State.

If an election were held now the result would be too close to call – with the support of minor parties and independents required for either major party to form government.

There was better news with other key indicators – which all moved in a positive direction this week.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence increased 4.5pts to 78.5 – but still well below the neutral level of 100.

Now a third of Australians, 33%, say the country is heading in the right direction while 54.5% say the country is heading in the wrong direction.

In terms of consumers, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increased 1.6pts to 83.5 this week – its highest since early February.

Despite the increase, Consumer Confidence has spent a record 63 weeks below the level of 85. Looking back over the last few months, Consumer Confidence has now moved in a narrow band of 80-85 over the last 19 weeks since early December.

However, as we must keep reminding ourselves, 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.

Inflation Expectations were marginally down this week after three weeks of increases, down by 0.1% to 5.2%. Australians now expect annual Inflation to be 5.2% over the next two years.

Like Consumer Confidence, Inflation Expectations have stayed within a narrowband of 4.8% to 5.3% since early December.

So how are businesses feeling? Roy Morgan’s Business Confidence for March shows the index down 3.5 points to 98.0.

Roy Morgan interviews around 1,500 businesses each month to gauge their views on their company’s prospects as well as their assessment of the broader Australian economy.

The driver of the decrease in March was a deterioration in views about the performance of the Australian economy over the next year and next five years – with both indicators now clearly in negative territory.

However, businesses are generally optimistic about their own performance going forward. Now 49.6% of businesses expect to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year compared to only 24% that expect to be ‘worse off’: Optimism outweighing pessimism 2:to:1.

On the important issues of business investing for growth - more businesses say now is a ‘good time to invest in growing the business’ (46.9%) while 42.9% say now is a ‘bad time to invest in growing the business’.

Over the last two months of February and March eight industries had Business Confidence in positive territory above the neutral level of 100.

The most confident industry was again Accommodation & Food Services with a Business Confidence of 141.9. This industry has had a stellar last few months and been clearly the most confident since Summer began in December.

The second most confident industry is Education & Training on 128.7. This industry has enjoyed a continued boom and been among the Top Five most confident industries for nearly two years since July 2022 – just after the last Federal Election.

Other confident industries include Finance & Insurance on 117.6, Professional, Scientific & Technical Services on 112.6 and Mining on 110.4.

At the other end of the scale Transport, Postal & Warehousing again has clearly the lowest Business Confidence at only 56.2.

Other industries with below average Business Confidence early in 2024 include Public Administration & Defence, Information, Media & Telecommunications and Agriculture.