Roy Morgan Update April 8, 2025: ALP support up, Consumer Confidence and Inflation Expectations

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

President Trump’s decision to impose world-wide tariffs – including 10% on Australian exports to the US – has created a negative reaction amongst many Australians and is proving a clear positive for the ALP.

Although most of this week’s polling was undertaken before the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs, the Roy Morgan Poll shows the Albanese Government strengthening its lead over the Coalition with under four weeks until election day – and early voting starts in only two weeks.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government with an increased majority with the ALP on 53.5% (up 0.5% points from a week ago) ahead of the L-NP Coalition on 46.5% on a two-party preferred basis, the latest Roy Morgan survey finds.

The Roy Morgan survey in the first week of March was the first poll to pick up the shift in support towards the ALP – and away from the Coalition – and this trend has continued to build.

Crikey: From the edge of victory to the jaws of defeat, Dutton hits the panic button by Bernard Keane (April 7, 2025)

The opposition leader has begun his election campaign in shambolic fashion. He urgently needs to fix it — otherwise, we might be doomed to a Labor majority.

It started with the Roy Morgan weekly federal poll in February. After the Coalition had held a narrow lead over Labor on a two-party-preferred basis at the end of last year, the government suddenly regained a small lead.

It looked counterintuitive: Peter Dutton had all the momentum, Anthony Albanese looked powerless to respond, and the return of Donald Trump seemed to suggest the wind at the backs of right-wing strongman-style leaders — exactly Dutton’s image.

A week later, Morgan flipped back to a narrow Coalition lead, 50.5-49.5, and it seemed the boost for Labor might have just been a one-off because of the Reserve Bank’s rate cut.

But then Labor regained its lead. And in mid-March, Morgan produced a shocker: 54.5-45.5 with Labor leading. A rogue poll, surely? But the result was 53-47 a week after that, a result that held through to the end of March. We’ll know shortly what last week’s poll was, but meanwhile, every other poll has flipped in Labor’s favour as well.

Link: https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/07/peter-dutton-policy-backflip-2025-federal-election-liberals-coalition-party/

The Coalition’s ‘political mistakes’ were on display in recent days such as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announcing his main residence would be at Kirribilli House in Sydney and followed by the ‘working from home backflip’ – ditching the controversial policy to force Commonwealth public servants back to the office.

Dutton also walked back a commitment to slash 40,000 public service jobs to cut spending, with the Coalition to now rely on attrition and not replacing people.

The ALP Government’s attempt to tie Dutton closely to US President Donald Trump also appears to be working.

Primary support for the ALP increased 0.5% to 32.5% at the expense of the Coalition, down 2% to 33% - the closest the two parties have been since mid-October 2023.

Support for the Greens increased 0.5% to 13.5%, One Nation was up 0.5% to 6% and support for Other Parties increased 2% to 6%.

Clive Palmer’s new Trumpet of Patriots party received 1.5% support – its best result so far, while support for Independents dropped 1.5% to 9%.

Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) was virtually unchanged this week at 81.

This indicator remains well below the neutral level of 100 because more Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction (52%), than the right direction (33%).

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence, which was fully interviewed by last Friday and before the recent market plunges in reaction to President Trump’s tariffs, improved last week, up 1.5 points to 86.8 after the Federal Budget – a second straight weekly increase.

The impact on Consumer Confidence of the recent market moves will be captured in next week’s reading.

Inflation Expectations dropped 0.1% to 4.6% this week – below the long-term average.

Australians now expect inflation of 4.6% over each of the next two years.

And now, Australian Business Confidence which in March declined by 2.5 points to 106. The drop came despite the Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates in mid-February.

This result is based on interviews with 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 drop was driven by rising concerns about the Australian economy over the next five years and more businesses reporting they are ‘worse off’ financially than this time a year ago.