Roy Morgan Update December 3, 2024: ALP Support drops, Consumer Confidence & NZ Voting Intention

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

As we predicted a week ago, there was only a short-term boost for the Government following Prime Minister Albanese’s overseas trips to the leaders’ forums in South America was short-lived. This week Coalition support increased at the expense of the ALP.

Coalition on 51%, up 2% from a week ago, is now ahead of the ALP 49% on a two-party preferred basis. If a Federal Election were held now the result would be ‘too close to call’ and either the ALP or Coalition would require the support of minor parties and independents to form government.

This last week the Albanese Government did several deals with the Greens to pass legislation including Reserve Bank governance reforms, a supermarket code of conduct, the Future Made in Australia scheme and housing reforms to boost rental supply.

The Government also worked with the Coalition to pass a highly contentious social media ban for children, and legislated new migrant deportation powers. All up the Albanese Government passed 31 bills on the final day of the parliamentary year.

Roy Morgan has also recorded a decrease in Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) this week, down 4.5 points to 76.5 – well below the neutral level of 100.

A majority of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction (55.5%). Only 32% say the country is going in the right direction.

There was better news with Consumer Confidence. ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increased 2.7 points to 88.4 this week – the highest Consumer Confidence since May 2022.

Powering the increase in Consumer Confidence was a sharp jump in buying intentions with 31% (up a large 7%) of Australians last week saying it was a ‘good time to buy major household items’.

Obviously this is still less than half the population – but despite this, ‘Buying intentions’ are now at their highest since May 2022.

Given it was the Black Friday sales last week that is not surprising. In the last few years there has been a significant bump to buying intentions in the lead-up to Black Friday – the ‘Black Friday Bump’.

But there’s also a chance of a reversal the following week that may drag Consumer Confidence back down.

Inflation Expectations dropped 0.2% to 4.8% this week. Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 4.8% over the next two years.

In New Zealand both key indicators – Government Confidence and Consumer Confidence – increased in November to reach multi-year highs.

There’s been good news for consumers in New Zealand recently with interest rates dropping from 5.5% in early August to 4.25% in November – down by over 1% point in the last three months.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence increased 18 points to 104 – the first time more New Zealanders say the country is ‘going in the right direction’ instead of the ‘wrong direction’ since January 2022 nearly three years ago.

In addition, ANZ-Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence, the measure of consumer’s economic sentiment, increased 8.6 points to 99.8 – its highest since September 2021.

We have seen repeatedly over many decades that when interest rates come down, Consumer Confidence goes up.

However, the good news on the economic front has not helped the National-led Government which is involved in a contentious attempt to re-visit the Treaty of Waitangi.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll shows support for National is only 28.5% in November, just ahead of Labour on 28%.

This is the narrowest gap in favour of National since last year’s election and the lowest level of support for National since Christopher Luxon became the leader in November 2021.