Roy Morgan Update August 6, 2024: ALP support up, Consumer Confidence & Temu and Shein customers

In this week's update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence & Temu and Shein customers

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

In a week where Australia celebrated a record-breaking Olympic Games –for the first time ever Australia won Gold Medals every day for the first eight days of competition – there’s been a small shift in support for the Albanese Government.

But the overall political picture remains very close - and several key indicators – such as Consumer Confidence, Government Confidence and Inflation Expectations remain at worrying levels.

The latest Roy Morgan survey shows that if a Federal Election were held now the result would be a narrow win for the Labor Party with the ALP on 51.5% (up 1%) ahead of the Coalition on 48.5% on a two-party preferred basis.

Although neither major party increased their support this week, the flow of preferences from minor parties tipped further in favour of the ALP, once again highlighting the importance of preference flows to determine the overall two-party preferred result.

The Coalition primary vote decreased 0.5% to 37% while ALP support was unchanged at 30.5%.

Support for the Greens dropped 1% to 12% and One Nation was down 1% to 5.5%.

Smaller parties and independents again gained support this week. Support for Other Parties was up 1% to 5% and support for Independents increased 1.5% to 10% - the highest it has been so far this year.

Government Confidence was down slightly for a second straight week: A majority, 53% of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction, (that’s up 0.5%)  while only 32%, say the country is heading in the right direction (down 1.5%).

This means Roy Morgan Government Confidence is down 2 points to 79 –well below the neutral level of 100.

Consumer Confidence was also down slightly this week, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was down 1.8 points to 81.3.

Driving this week’s decrease were Australians’ concerns about their personal finances over the next year.

In the lead-up to today’s Reserve Bank board meeting on interest rates, more Australians expect to be ‘worse off financially’ this time next year - 34% (up 3%) expect to be worse off. Only 30% (down 2%) expect to be ‘better off’ .

Clearly the Reserve Bank’s decision on interest rates today will have a significant impact on what happens to Consumer Confidence this week.

Longer-term, Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 79 weeks (equivalent to 18 months) below the level of 85.

This week Inflation Expectations were virtually unchanged at 5.1%. The ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations indicator now shows Australians expect annual inflation to be 5.1% per annum over the next two years.

Longer-term, Inflation Expectations have been remarkably stable this year and have stayed within a narrow band of 4.8% to 5.3% for 35 weeks (equivalent to eight months) since early December.

Last week we talked about the continued rise of Amazon.  And now, another Roy Morgan update, on the growth in online retail – and the amazing success of new players Temu and Shein.

As many Australians deal with a huge cost of living crisis that is curtailing broader retail sales (Retail volumes on a per capita basis fell for the 8th straight quarter in June according to the latest ABS Retail Sales data released last week) – the value and convenience of Temu and Shein is making a significant impact.

New data from Roy Morgan capturing the annual shopper base of these ultra cheap online disruptors reveals the staggering number of buyers: 3.8 million Australians aged 14+ are buying from Temu (at least once over 12 months), while 2 million are buying Shein.

And there not just buying once. Among those customers who have shopped on Shein and Temu in the last 12 months, the majority are repeat customers (76% of Shein shoppers, 80% of Temu shoppers) – buying at least twice in the 12 months period from each platform.