Roy Morgan Update February 17, 2026: Federal Vote, Consumer Confidence and Unemployment

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

The first Roy Morgan Poll conducted after the Liberal Leadership change on Friday morning shows Liberal-National Coalition support up 3.5% to 23.5% and ahead of One Nation on 21.5%.

Support for the ALP was on 32%, the Greens 12.5%, and Independents/Other Parties 10.5% according to interviewing conducted from February 13-16, 2026, with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 526 electors.

The big move was amongst men following Angus Taylor’s replacement of Sussan Ley. Men’s support for the Coalition increased 7.5% to 27.5% on the weekend after the leadership change, while men’s support for One Nation dropped 4%, and support for the ALP was down 1.5%.

For women, support for the ALP increased 4% to 38%, was virtually unchanged for the Coalition on 19.5%, and was down 2.5% to 17% for One Nation.

On a two-party preferred basis, the ALP is on 55% compared to the Coalition on 45%. If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be easily returned to Government.

Men swung heavily to the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis, up 8.5% to 52.5% compared to the ALP on 47.5%. There was a small but opposite change for women with the ALP up 1% to 62% compared to the L-NP on 38%.

However, Australians remain concerned about the country. A majority of electors, 55%, say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’, only 33% say the country is ‘going in the right direction’.

This means the Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is at 78 – over 20 points below the neutral level of 100.

And Consumer Confidence, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was virtually unchanged this week at 77.1, up 0.2 points from a week ago.

Concerningly, ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.5% to 5.5%, reversing last week’s fall.

This means Australians expect inflation of 5.5% in each of the next two years.

Now to Roy Morgan measures of employment and unemployment – and the news is mixed in January.

‘Real Unemployment’ was up 0.8% to 11.2%, - an estimated 1.82 million Australians unemployed – looking for work, 149,000 more than a month ago – the highest for a year.

The workforce defined as employed plus people looking for work grew 115,000 to a record high over 16.2 million driven by more people joining the workforce but unable to find work – adding to the level of unemployment.

The regular employment trends were observed in January with full-time employment rising in the New Year (up 173,000 to over 9.3 million), and part-time employment falling 206,000 to under 5.1 million) following the holiday retail period towards the end of the previous year.

Overall, this led to a decline in employment in January, down 34,000 to under 14.4 million. Employment has now fallen in January in four of the last five years following the pandemic.

There was good news with a fall in under-employment– the number of people wanting to work more hours – which dropped 111,000 to under 1.68 million.

These movements meant total unemployment and under-employment – which is workforce under-utilisation – was unchanged at 21.5% of the workforce – an estimated 3.49 million people.

The estimates for January continue a long-run of high figures with over 3 million Australians now unemployed or under-employed for a 14^th straight month.

The latest Roy Morgan Young Australian Survey shows YouTube viewing is near-universal among 6-13-year-olds with 89% of this age group, an estimated 2.5 million, watching YouTube.

The leading YouTube video category is Gaming – watched by 53% of YouTube viewers in this age group – an estimated 1.33 million children, ahead of 930,000 watching the Animation category, 900,000 watching Comedy, and 850,000 watching the Animals and Music categories.

Boys are the primary drivers of the Gaming category (67% of YouTube watching boys compared to 39% of girls). Boys are also far more likely to watch the Sports category (36% to 17%).

In contrast, girls show a strong preference over boys for categories including Animals (44% compared to 25% of boys), Music (41% to 27%), Fashion (31% to just 5%) and Unboxing (31% to 18%).

Video categories with fairly even gender splits include Animation, Comedy, Challenges and Educational.

Among 10–13 year olds, those who watch YouTube are more likely than those who don’t to agree with the following attitudes:

“I would rather play computer games than play outside” (55% to 36%); “I worry about wars” (67% to 45%), and “I worry about terrorism” (33% to 23%).