Roy Morgan Update August 26, 2025: Australian Crime, Mortgage Stress and Federal Vote

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on Australian Crime, Mortgage Stress and Federal Vote.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

Crime is a growing problem in my community according to 66% of Australians; and mortgage stress is easing, but not for everyone.

But first – Federal Voting Intention. The latest Roy Morgan Poll conducted in August with an Australia-wide cross-section of 5,001 electors – found;

Two-party preferred support for the ALP was at 56.5% well ahead of the Coalition on only 43.5% - virtually unchanged from the last Roy Morgan Poll released at the end of July.

One interesting feature in August was a drop in the primary support for both major parties – The ALP was down 2.5% to 34% and the L-NP Coalition was down 1% to 30%.

Support for the Greens was unchanged at 12%.

The big winners in August were One Nation, up 2% to 9%, and Independents/ Other Parties, up 1.5% to 15%.

One Nation’s support at 9% is now at a record high for the Roy Morgan Poll and comes after a successful Federal Election for the party at which it won 4 Senate seats.

And the latest Roy Morgan’s Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) shows not everything is going well for the Government and was down in August, by 5 points to 85.5.

50.5% of Australians say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’ compared to 36% that say the country is ‘going in the right direction’.

The ALP continues to lead the Liberal-National Coalition on a two-party preferred basis in all six States.

The ALP’s largest two-party preferred leads are again in the two smallest States of South Australia (ALP: 59% cf. L-NP 41%) and Tasmania (ALP: 63.5% cf. L-NP 36.5%).

The ALP has strengthened its two-party preferred lead amongst women and is now on 60.5% more than 20% points ahead of the Coalition on 39.5%.

However, the gap is far closer amongst men – with the ALP on 52% only holding a narrow lead over the Coalition on 48%.

Analysis by Age shows a clear split between those aged under 50 versus those aged over 50.

Under 50 – the ALP holds large two-party preferred leads amongst both 18-34 year olds and 35-49 year olds – scoring more than 60% support amongst both these age groups.

Over 50 the Coalition leads among both age groups.

For Australians aged 50-64 the Coalition has a narrow lead on 50.5% compared to the ALP on 49.5%.

For those aged 65+, Coalition support has grown to 56.5% compared to the ALP on 43.5%.

Turning to the weekly indicators, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence is down 3.4 points to 86.0 this week – the first full week of interviewing after the Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates.

There’s no doubt this is a disappointing result and a look at the five key index questions shows confidence down across all five.

This week Australians are less confident about their personal financial situations now compared to a year ago, less confident about their personal financial situations over the next year, less confident that now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items and less confident about the performance of the Australian economy over the next year and next five years.

It's unusual to see all five index questions fall in the same week – especially after a stimulatory move like a cut to interest rates.

We’re just not happy!

We will be monitoring Consumer Confidence closely to see whether sentiment turns around as we move out of Winter and into Spring.

This week ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.1% to 5% - reversing last week’s small fall.

This means Australians now expect inflation of 5% over each of the next two years.

This week we look at mortgage stress from another angle – the bigger picture and who’s really hurting.

Roy Morgan’s Single Source research reveals an estimated one million mortgage holders (18.5%) were ‘Extremely at Risk’ of mortgage stress in the year to June 2025 – that’s down 6.5% year-over-year.

Mortgage stress eased from 2024 driven by factors such as real wage growth as inflation declined, income tax cuts, home loan interest rate cuts and a rising share market.

But the decline was only evident among those in the top three socio-economic quintiles.

Among those in the lowest two quintiles, the proportion of mortgage holders ‘at extreme risk’ of mortgage stress actually increased – by 5% among those in the E Quintile, and by 5.2% among those in the FG quintile.

For further detail on exactly who is being most impacted by mortgage stress head over to the Roy Morgan website.

New Roy Morgan crime research shows two-thirds of Australians (66%) agree that ‘Crime is a growing problem in my community’ – that’s higher than at any point in the last decade.

The last time concerns about crime were at this level, or higher, for a sustained period was back in 2005-2006 around 20 years ago, and before that in 2001-2002 after the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Center.

The national trend over the last decade shows concerns about crime reached a ‘pre-pandemic’ high of 60% in 2016-17 before moderating over the next few years and fell to a pandemic low of 51% in 2020-21.

Since then, concern has surged and is up 15% points in only four years to 66%. The State-by-State results reveal significant differences, but the same clear upward trend over the last few years. Queensland records the highest current level of concern about crime at 77%, followed by Victoria (72%), Western Australia (65%), South Australia (63%), Tasmania (61%), NSW (57%) and the ACT (51%).