Roy Morgan Update March 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.

In a week that saw a new National Party Leader, Matt Canavan, continued War in the Middle East, 7 young Iranian sports women offered asylum in Australia (although 5 have now returned to Iran) and heavy focus on fuel, access and prices.

Consumer confidence is down,

Inflation Expectations are up and,

Employment and underemployment indicators are worrying.

Consumer Confidence is down for a third straight week.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence fell 4.9 points to 68.5 – its second lowest result ever recorded, and the lowest since the first week of pandemic lockdowns in March 2020.

Consumer Confidence has now fallen 11.7 points in the last three weeks since Israel and the United States began attacking Iran on the last day of February.

The biggest driver of the fall was loss of confidence about the Australian economy over the next year (down a net 8% points, and down 19% points over the last three weeks).

Also driving the multi-week fall is less confidence that now is a ‘good time to buy’ household items – this index has fallen by a net 13% points over the last three weeks.

These falls in Consumer Confidence came before today’s decision by the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.1% - which is set to send confidence even lower.

And a big reason for the Reserve Bank’s decision is rising inflation – which had rapidly increased before the recent war.

Since the war started Inflation Expectations have soared.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations jumped 0.6% points to 6.7% this week - the highest level since early November 2022.

This means Australians expect inflation of 6.7% in each of the next two years.

Inflation Expectations have now jumped 1.5% points in only three weeks, as Australians factor in petrol price increases as well as flow on costs to food and other goods.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the war in the Middle East has led to an immediate spike in retail petrol prices – which hit a record high of $2.20 per litre last week and are set to move even higher.

Prices have jumped 53 cents since this time last month – a 32% increase.

Now to Roy Morgan measures of employment and unemployment. So ‘Real Unemployment’ was down 0.6% to 10.6%

 Overall employment increased 148,000 to over 14.5 million. (part time jobs increased 169,000, full time jobs decreased 21,000)

An estimated 1.72 million Australians were unemployed – looking for work. That’s down 97,000 on a month ago.

But, under-employment – the number of people wanting to work more hours increased by 216,000 to over 1.89 million.

This meant – workforce under-utilisation increased to 22.2%, – an estimated 3.61 million people.

The February estimates continue a long-run of high figures with over 3 million Australians now underutilised for a 15^th straight month.

These numbers are incredibly important today as the country tries to make the right economic and fiscal decisions to prevent rampant inflation or a recession.

The Roy Morgan real unemployment figure is 10.6%, this is much higher than reported by the ABS.

The Roy Morgan figure is down 0.6% in a month, but that decrease masks the underlying growth in part time employment, and the associated under-employment. These are more akin to warnings of recession than rampant inflation.

If this complex pattern was understood by Government and the RBA and there was no political overlay, Australia would not be considering interest rate increases to try to solve the problem, we would be single mindedly focussed on the possibility of recession.

This may just be the most important indicator of all. Australia’s businesses lost confidence in February – even before the war started, but after the Reserve Bank raised interest rates, down a significant 8.8 points to 88.6.

The biggest driver of the change was businesses losing confidence about prospects for the Australian economy over the next 12 months which dropped by a net 17% points.

Now more businesses expect ‘bad times’ for the economy (50%) than ‘good times’ (48%) over the next 12 months.

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.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll shows a move back to the major parties this week – the ALP up 2% to 28.5%, and the Liberal-National Coalition up 1.5% to 24% - driven by rising support for the Nationals.

Early last week right-wing Senator Matt Canavan became the new Nationals leader – and support for the party has increased 1% - at the same time, support for rival party One Nation dropped 1% to 22.5%.

It appears Canavan has already won some support back from the party.

Support for National rose most strongly in Queensland (his home state) and New South Wales.

The Greens dropped 2% to 12.5% and 12.5% support Independents and Other Parties according to interviewing conducted from March 9-15, 2026, with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 1,654 electors.

The two-party preferred result was virtually unchanged with the ALP 54% ahead of the L-NP 46% based on how electors said they would vote.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government with a clear majority.

This week Roy Morgan Government Confidence fell even lower.

Now 60.5% of electors say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’, only 25.5% say the country is ‘going in the right direction’.

This means the Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating was down 2.5 points to 65 – 35 points below the neutral level of 100.

And finally today to retailing.

New data from Roy Morgan on shopper numbers, reveals that while the mass retailers are stable, the mid-tier department stores and legacy online retailers are under pressure from ultra-cheap retailers Temu and Shein, both of which have delivered outsized growth over the past year.

Retailers Bunnings, Kmart and Big W remain dominant and stable in 2025 with modest growth in the shopper numbers year-on-year (+2% for Bunnings, +3% for Kmart and +1% for Big W).

However, Roy Morgan has recorded much stronger shopper gains for online marketplaces Temu, Shein and Amazon. .

Temu had 5 million Australian shoppers in 2025 (up by 700,000 year-on-year, +17% growth);

Shein had 2.9 million Australian shoppers (up by 600,000 year-on-year, +28% growth);

And Amazon has also gained 500,000 shoppers year-on-year.

Importantly, Temu, Shein and Amazon also increased frequency of visitation, while most other retailers saw their shoppers shopping less.