Roy Morgan Update March 4, 2025: ALP support down, Consumer Confidence and Mortgage Stress

In this week's update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence and Mortgage Stress.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

The ‘sugar hit’ from the Reserve Bank decision to reduce interest rates that improved all the Roy Morgan weekly indicators and gave an immediate boost to the Albanese Government has settled.

The Roy Morgan Poll has the Coalition on 50.5% (up 1.5%) regaining a narrow lead ahead of the ALP on 49.5% on a two-party preferred basis.

If a Federal Election were held now the result would be a hung parliament and the Coalition or ALP would require the support of minor parties and independents to form a government, the latest Roy Morgan survey finds.

The latest weekly Roy Morgan Poll has not completely reversed the ‘Reserve Bank boost’ the Albanese Government received following the Bank’s decision to cut interest rates – but has definitely shown the ‘boost’ to Labor has been significantly softened.

Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) fell by 5.5 points to 79.5, down from last week’s 12 month high.

A majority of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction (52%), while only 31.5% say the country is heading in the right direction.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence fell 2.1 points to 87.7, retracting about half the boost given by the interest rate cut.

The decrease this week was a reverse of many of the factors that drove last week’s jump and was primarily driven by a decline in Australian views about their own personal finances.

Inflation Expectations increased 0.3% to 4.5% this week, retracting about half the previous week’s large fall.

Australians now expect inflation of 4.5% over each of the next two years.

Despite the increase, this is still the equal second lowest reading for Inflation Expectations for nearly four years.

And now Mortgage Stress - the latest Roy Morgan estimates on mortgage stress show an increase in January – a third straight monthly increase.

In January, an estimated 1.63 million Australians, or 28.9% of all Australians with a mortgage, were ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress. That’s up 1% from December. But is still 1.4% lower than June 2024 – before the Stage 3 tax cuts.

The increasing mortgage stress in recent months was no doubt a factor for the Reserve Bank in its decision to cut interest rates in February to provide relief to Australian mortgage holders.