Roy Morgan Update July 30, 2024: ALP Support down, Consumer Confidence & Amazon customer base

In this week's update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence & Amazon customer base

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update – in the week following the massive computer-related outage and the withdrawal of US President Joe Biden from this year’s American Presidential Election – there was little change on the Australian political scene.

But, spoiler alert, both major parties lost primary support while support for Independents and Minor Parties increased.

The latest Roy Morgan survey shows that if a Federal Election were held now the result would be ‘too close to call’ with the Labor Party on 50.5% (up 1.5%) just ahead of the Coalition on 49.5% (down 1.5%) on a two-party preferred basis.

Both major parties lost support this week. The Coalition primary vote decreased by 2% to 37.5% while ALP primary support was down 1% to only 30.5%.

This highlights, once again, the importance of preference flows to determine the overall two-party preferred result - with nearly a third of the electorate not voting for either of the major parties.

Support for the Greens was unchanged at 13%.

Smaller parties and independents gained support.

One Nation increased 1.5% to 6.5%, support for Other Parties was up 0.5% to 4% and support for Independents increased 1% to 8.5%.

Either the ALP or Coalition would require the support of minor parties and independents to form a minority government based on these results.

Government Confidence was down slightly this week,

A majority of (52.5%) of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction, 33.5% (down 1%), say the country is heading in the right direction.

This means Roy Morgan Government Confidence down 1 point to 81 –well below the neutral level of 100.

Consumer Confidence also eased slightly this week, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence down 1.3 points to 83.1.

Driving this week’s decrease were concerns about the Australian economy’s performance over the next year with other indicators virtually unchanged from a week ago.

In the lead-up to next week’s Reserve Bank board meeting on interest rates, only 9% of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next twelve months (that’s down 3%) while  over a third, 35% (up 2%), expect ‘bad times’.

Longer-term, Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 78 weeks (equivalent to 18 months) below the level of 85.

On a State-based level Victoria continues to have the lowest Consumer Confidence of any State at only 80.3 and Western Australia has clearly the highest the only state above 90 – at 95.2

This week Inflation Expectations were unchanged at 5.0%.

The ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations indicator now shows Australians expect annual inflation to be 5.0% 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 34 weeks since early December.

And now to some stunning figures on retail shoppers

As many retail brands struggle to maintain sales and acquire new customers amid the cost-of-living crisis, Amazon continues to buck the trend – spectacularly!

 New data from Roy Morgan reports an estimated 7.9 million Australians shopped Amazon in the 12 months to June 2024. This means Amazon has grown its annual customer base by 1.1 million compared to the previous year.