Roy Morgan Update February 10, 2026: Federal Vote, Consumer Confidence and Business Confidence

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll was completed after the Reserve Bank’s interest rate increase, but before the Coalition’s decision to re-unite announced on Sunday afternoon and shows ALP primary support on 28.5%, One Nation on 24.5% just ahead of the L-NP Coalition on 22.5%, the Greens on 13.5%, and 11% supporting Independents and Other Parties.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll was surveyed with a representative cross-section of 1,584 Australians from Monday February 2 – Sunday February 8.

On a two-party preferred basis, the changing levels of primary support cut the ALP’s lead now on 53.5% ahead of the Coalition on 46.5%. If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be easily returned to Government.

However, Australians are increasingly concerned about Australia. An increasing majority of Australian electors, 58.5%, say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’, only 28.5% say the country is ‘going in the right direction’.

This means the Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is down 3.5 points to only 70.

The Reserve Bank’s decision to raise interest rates has hit community confidence – ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence dropped 3.6 points to 76.9 last week – the lowest confidence level since December 2023.

Driving the decrease was less confidence and deeper pessimism about the Australian economy’s performance going forward.

This drop in confidence is most clear when looking at long-term views of the Australian economy which dropped 5.7% points to -21.8 this week.

This is below the pandemic low of-17.6, below the Global Financial Crisis low of 0, and the lowest rating for this key indicator for over 35 years since January 1991.

In positive news this week – the leading indicator, ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations dropped 0.5% to 5%.

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

ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations were a leading indicator last year foreshadowing rising inflation in the economy, so this result suggests there is hope inflation will soon start coming down.

One indicator that supports this is average retail petrol prices – a key inflation indicator – which dropped below $1.70 per litre last week for the first time since 2022.

A special analysis of Roy Morgan’s mortgage stress data shows the Reserve Bank’s decision to raise interest rates is set to hit mortgage holders in Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania the hardest.

If the Reserve Bank raises interest rates again in March, 29.9% of mortgage holders in Victoria will be ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress, 26.8% in Queensland, and 32.6% in Tasmania – higher than any other State.

The least impact will be felt in Western Australia – only 25.5% of mortgage holders will be ‘At Risk’ even if the RBA raises interest rates again.

And finally today to business. This may just be the most important indicator of all. Australia’s businesses lost confidence in January, down a significant 7.6 points to 97.4.

The biggest driver of the change was businesses losing confidence about their own prospects over the next year – this index dropped by a net 18.5% points in January. Only 33.3% of businesses expect to be ‘better off’ financially next year – (down from 46.4%).

The drop in confidence came after the ABS released official inflation figures in early January (at 3.4%) and again in late January (at 3.8%) which showed inflation above the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range, and discussion about interest rate rises was widespread.

Of course, the Reserve Bank delivered on this discussion with an increase to interest rates last week.

This Roy Morgan Business Confidence series is based on interviews with 1,000 businesses each month to gauge their views on their company’s prospects as well as their assessment of the broader Australian economy.

Over the two months of December and January, the most confident industries were:

The lowest Business Confidence is for Public Administration & Safety on only 72.8 – its lowest rating for over a decade since May 2015.

At the other end of the scale, we have Electricity, Gas, Water & Waste Services which recorded a Business Confidence of 132.5 followed by Mining on 128.6.