Roy Morgan Update January 13, 2026: Federal Vote, Terrorism, Consumer Confidence, Business Confidence

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

Welcome to the last Roy Morgan Weekly update for 2025.

Australians are feeling happier to start the year.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence is up 3 points to 84.5 with the usual New Year’s ‘bump’.

The largest driver of the recovery was a boost to buying sentiment during the post-Christmas sales period, as well as more positive views about the state of the Australian economy looking forward.

Despite the increase, this is the lowest Consumer Confidence to start a year since 1991 – 35 years ago.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations dropped 0.2% to 5.4% to start 2026. This means Australians expect inflation of 5.4% in each of the next two years.

This is good news, and the first time weekly Inflation Expectations have fallen for nearly three months – since mid-October.

The first Roy Morgan Poll since the ‘Bondi Shooting’ shows Coalition support at 30.5% - up 3% since mid-December, and now just ahead of the ALP on 30%.

Support for One Nation is on 15%, the Greens are on 13.5%, and Independents/Other Parties are on 11%.

The latest Roy Morgan survey was conducted with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 1,676 electors, in the week of January 5-11, 2026

On a two-party preferred basis, the ALP is still ahead on 52% (down 2.5% from mid-December) the Coalition on 48%.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government with a decreased majority. The Government’s two-party preferred lead is the smallest since the Federal Election.

The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating plunged 7 points after the ‘Bondi Shooting’ to 74 in early January. Just 19.5% of Australians say the country is ‘going in the right direction’ while 45.5% say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’.

The results from a special Roy Morgan Poll on terrorism show many Australians blame Albanese and his Government for the shooting – more on that in a minute.

ALP support dropped, and Coalition support increased, on a two-party preferred basis across all States, both men and women, and all ages.

A special Roy Morgan SMS Poll conducted in December into views on blame and responsibility for terrorism shows around two-thirds of the blame is directed at either Terrorists/ Extremists (36%) or Prime Minister Albanese, the Australian Government, and other politicians (29%).

The largest group mentioned is the Terrorists/ Extremists and people who mentioned this group cited their extreme religious and political beliefs, the religion at the core of their beliefs, their single-minded focus on their own agenda, the fact that by definition it is terrorists that carry out terrorism, and because the evidence overwhelmingly points in that direction.

Importantly – and key to understanding why support for the Government has dropped over the last few weeks – is that over a quarter of Australians mentioned Prime Minister Albanese, the Government, and politicians such as Penny Wong and Tony Burke as mainly to blame for terrorism.

Respondents said the Government has a lax immigration policy letting in too many migrants, has done nothing to protect Australia, has allowed ‘hate speech’, demonstrated poor leadership, demonised Israel, and encouraged the extremists by recognising Palestine.

Looking back, the year 2025 ended positively for both mortgage holders and businesses.

The latest Roy Morgan estimates show mortgage stress down in November, by 0.6%. Now 24.7% of Australians with a mortgage, are ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress – an estimated 1.25 million Australians.

Mortgage stress has proven sensitive to interest rate decisions and has now declined by 3.2% following the Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates in August.

This is the lowest level of mortgage stress for three years since early 2023.

However, recent indications are that there will be no more interest rate cuts in the near future, and there is a growing possibility of the RBA raising interest rates.

Now to business.

Australia’s businesses grew significantly more confident in December, up 6.3 points to 105.0 – the highest rating for the indicator for nine months – since March 2025.

The biggest driver of the change was businesses being significantly more confident about their own prospects which drove over 80% of the monthly increase.

This Roy Morgan Business Confidence series is based on interviews with 1,200 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 November and December, the most confident industries were:

Electricity, Gas, Water & Waste Services which recorded a Business Confidence of 129.3 followed by Mining on 126.2.

At the other end of the scale, we have Retail Trade on only 71.1 and Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing on just 79.3 – both well below any other industries.