Roy Morgan Update April 9, 2024: ALP Support drops, Consumer Confidence & Unemployment

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

Support for the Coalition is up 1.5%, on a two-party preferred basis to 50.5% - now narrowly ahead of the ALP on 49.5% according to the latest Roy Morgan Poll.

This is the first time the Coalition has been ahead since the first week of January.

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.

So why is this so – what’s happening?

A lot goes on under the surface of a 2PP support. So, let’s look at Primary vote.

Support for the major parties moved in favour of the Coalition – but was little changed. The Coalition L-NP was up 0.5% to 38% while support for Labor dropped 0.5% to 29.5%.

The rise in support for the Coalition on a 2PP was driven by a surge in support for One Nation – up 2.5% to 6% - the highest support for the party since last November.

There were several issues last week that hurt the Government and favoured the conservative side of politics - including the crime wave in Alice Springs and the introduction of a youth curfew during the school holidays.

There was also the arrival of another asylum seeker boat in Western Australia – following on from the previous boat which arrived only two weeks earlier.

The issue of asylum seekers is closely tied to the release from indefinite detention of several asylum seekers – several of whom have gone on to commit crimes and be re-incarcerated.

These issues are not good for the Labor Government and play to the views of One Nation which is known for ‘talking tough’ on the borders and took a firm stance against ‘The Voice’ last year.

Also hurting Labor on a 2PP basis was the drop in support for The Greens, down 2% to 13.5%. Support for Independents was unchanged at 9% while 4% support Other Parties.

Other key indicators - Government Confidence, Consumer Confidence and Inflation Expectations - were also not good for the Albanese Government.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence was down 1.5pts to 74 - well below the neutral level of 100 and the lowest rating since November 2023 – just after the last interest rate increase.

Now only 30% of Australians say the country is heading in the right direction while 56% say the country is heading in the wrong direction. Almost twice as many say Wrong direction!

In terms of consumers, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was down 0.9pts to 81.9 this week. Consumer Confidence has spent a record 62 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 18 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 increased again for a third straight week, up 0.1% to 5.3%. Australians now expect annual Inflation to be 5.3% over the next two years.

This is the first time Inflation Expectations have increased for three straight weeks since late 2022 when Inflation Expectations peaked at 6.8%.

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

There was mixed news for the labour force - the good news, Roy Morgan real unemployment decreased down 0.5% to 8.7% in March, and a record number of Australians were employed - well over 14.2 million – a record.

Unfortunately, this record level of employment was driven by a substantial increase in part-time jobs, full time jobs actually decreased.

Unsurprisingly, under-employment (part time workers wanting more hours) jumped 0.5% points to 10.1% in March and largely cancelled out the fall in unemployment.

The overall figures show total unemployment and under-employment – what we might call workforce under-utilisation – was 18.8% of the workforce in March – 2.93 million people – virtually unchanged on February.