Roy Morgan Update April 21, 2026: Directors Sentiment Index, Consumer Confidence and Federal Vote

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on Directors Sentiment Index, Consumer Confidence and Federal Vote.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

First today how are Australian Directors feeling?

Roy Morgan’s survey of 828 company directors conducted for the Australian Institute of Company Directors – Directors Sentiment Index in February and March shows:

84% say there will be interest rate rises in the next six months.

41% believe current Reserve Bank monetary settings will cause a major uptick in business insolvencies.

43% say productivity is the number one issue for the Federal Government to address short term; followed by housing supply & affordability 33%; and taxation reform 31%.

51% think more skilled migration could help lift productivity, a drop from 59% in the previous survey.

68% say regulatory and compliance requirements are limiting productivity growth in their business.

73% believe a major deregulation agenda would strengthen Australia’s productivity and economic growth.

For further detail head to the AICD website.

So how are Australian people feeling, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was virtually unchanged at 64.3 this week. This is still the fourth lowest reading for Consumer Confidence since the series began over 50 years ago.

To put this into perspective, a majority of 57% of Australians say they are ‘Worse Off’ financially than a year ago only 15% say they are ‘Better Off’

As for next year, 45% expect to be ‘Worse Off’ financially this time next year while. only 21% expect to be ‘Better Off’

Views on the Australian economy are far weaker – and declined this week with a majority of 53% expecting ‘bad times’ for the economy over the next 12 months while just 4% expect ‘good times’.

And 33% expect ‘bad times’ for the economy over the next five years while only 6% expect ‘good times’. Clearly many don’t know what to expect or opt for some good times some bad times.

Amidst uncertainty about the war, and consequential flow through to prices, there was a renewed spike in Australians worries about inflation. ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.4% to 7.1%.

This means Australians expect annual inflation of 7.1% in each of the next two years – near the record high of 7.3% reached in late March.

There was a slight recovery for Roy Morgan Government Confidence with 26.5% Of electors believing the country is ‘going in the right direction’ But a majority 59.5% (down 1%) say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’.

Overall, Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating was up 1.5 points to just 67 – over 30 points below the neutral level of 100.

Now to the Roy Morgan Poll which shows the two major parties consolidating while One Nation lost support.

ALP primary support 30.5% (up 0.5%), L-NP Coalition 23% (up 0.5%, due to an increase in Nationals up 0.5% to 3.5%,) - Liberals were unchanged on 19.5%.

 One Nation primary support was down 3% to 21.5%, the Greens up 1% to 13.5% and Independents/ Other Parties up 1% to 11.5%.

Despite the movement in primary vote, the Federal two-party preferred result is virtually unchanged – ALP 55.5% ahead of the Coalition 44.5% based on how electors said they would vote.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government with a large majority according to interviewing conducted from April 13-19, 2026, with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 1,620 electors.

A special Channel Seven-Roy Morgan SMS Pulse Poll conducted on the weekend looked at Australian views on the visit of Prince Harry and Meghan last week.

The results were featured on a special Channel Seven program on Sunday night.

Importantly, over 80% of Australians knew Harry & Meghan were here – 82%, 18.1 million to be exact.

For those who did know they were here, Roy Morgan asked a series of questions about the impact of the visit.

81% said Prince Harry and Meghan’s visit to Australia did not improve their opinion of them

87% did not think the visit will help Prince Harry repair his relationship with the King?

Australians were evenly divided on whether the Queen would have approved of the trip with 51% saying ‘No’ and 49% saying ‘Yes’.

And a majority of 59% would not welcome Prince Harry and Meghan moving to Australia after this trip. Of course, 41% would.

To learn more about who holds these views visit the Roy Morgan Website.