Roy Morgan Update May 12, 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.

On the weekend One Nation delivered a massive shock to Australia’s political system by easily winning the Farrer by-election with a primary vote of around 40% and a two-party preferred result of 57% to 43% against the Independent.

One Nation received almost twice as much support as the combined Liberal and National party candidates.

One Nation clearly cut through far more effectively in the rural and regional seat of Farrer than they did in the suburban Victorian State seat of Nepean a week earlier at which they received around 25% support – and lost the seat to the Liberals.

And on the economic front, last week’s interest rate rise and media discussion about taxation changes in tonight’s Federal Budget have clearly impacted the weekly indicators this week – especially Consumer Confidence.

Firstly today to ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence dropped 3.1 points to only 64.1 last week – its lowest for a month, and the fourth lowest reading of all time.

There were declines across the index with Australians feeling less confidence about the state of their personal finances, the performance of the Australian economy going forward, and whether now is a good or bad time to buy major household items.

Interestingly, a look at Consumer Confidence by Housing Status shows the largest decline was for Home Owners – down 5.4 points for the week.

It is worth pointing out that People with a Mortgage continue to have the lowest Consumer Confidence at only 60.8 (down 1.2 points) – and have now had the lowest of these groups for 10 straight weeks. Renters Consumer Confidence was also down 2.1 points to 67.7.

The other big talking point over the last week was of course tonight’s Federal Budget and the changes to the Capital Gains Tax discount and negative gearing that are set to hit house prices – Home Owners are clearly worried about the implications of these tax changes for the value of their homes and other investments.

There was some good news last week with a drop for Inflation Expectations. ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations decreased 0.3% to 6.4% - now at their lowest since early March.

This means Australians expect annual inflation of 6.4% in each of the next two years.

Inflation Expectations (although still high) have now dropped 0.9% points since peaking in late March at 7.3% - and have followed petrol prices down.

Average retail petrol prices are down by about 70 cents since then – from a high of $2.53 a litre to around $1.83 a litre over the last two weeks.

In a concern for the Albanese Government before tonight’s Budget, Roy Morgan Government Confidence decreased.

Now only 25% of electors believe the country is ‘going in the right direction’ (that’s down 1.5%), but a clear majority of 60% say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’.

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

The Roy Morgan Poll shows a movement to the major parties this week on primary vote – keeping in mind interviewing for this poll was conducted before the stunning result in the Farrer by-election on Saturday night.

The impact of the result in Farrer will be seen in next week’s Morgan Poll.

But this week ALP primary support was up 1% to 30.5%, L-NP Coalition up 1% to 25% (Liberals unchanged on 21% and Nationals up 1% to 4%), with One Nation virtually unchanged on 22%.

Support for the Greens was down 1.5% to 11.5%, and support for Independents/ Other Parties down 1% to 11%.

The Federal two-party preferred result was slightly closer this week with the ALP 53.5% ahead of the Coalition 46.5% based on how electors said they would vote.

If the Federal two-party preferred contest is between the ALP and One Nation, the Morgan Poll estimates the ALP on 55% ahead of One Nation on 45%.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government according to interviewing conducted from May 4-10, 2026, with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 1,605 electors.

Now to Roy Morgan measures of employment and unemployment. In April ‘Real Unemployment’ was down 0.4% to 10.1%.

However, this wasn’t the ‘good news’ story you might think it was – unemployment dropped due to people who stopped looking for work – rather than finding new jobs.

Both unemployment and employment dropped in April, unemployment was down 58,000 to 1.63 million and employment was down 36,000 to 14.46 million, leading to the overall workforce falling by 94,000 to just under 16.1 million.

The drop in employment was due to a fall in full-time employment, down 225,000. The increase in part-time employment, up 189,000, wasn’t enough to make up for this decline.

In addition, under-employment – the number of people wanting to work more hours dropped by 48,000 to 1.64 million.

This meant – workforce under-utilisation was at 20.3%, – an estimated 3.27 million people – and clearly an indicator of a weak economy struggling to generate new jobs.

The April estimates continue a long-run of high figures with over 3 million Australians now underutilised for a 17^th straight month.

And finally today, we look across the Tasman to the political situation in New Zealand.

With an election due in six months the two sides continue to be essentially even, the National-led Government on 47.5% and the Labour-led Parliamentary Opposition on 48% - both unchanged on a month ago.

Comparing the two sides of politics - the National-led Government is made up of National on 25.5%, NZ First on 11.5% and ACT on 10.5% - a slight movement of support away from National to both NZ First and ACT.

Support for the Labour-led Parliamentary Opposition includes Labour on 34%, the Greens on 11% and the Maori Party on 3%.

The survey results for April would lead to both sides winning 60 seats each – a Parliamentary tie.