Roy Morgan Update May 13, 2025: ALP wins over 90 seats in Federal Election, Consumer Confidence and Unemployment

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

The full extent of the Albanese Government re-election victory has become apparent over the last week with the Labor Party winning over 90 seats and two party leaders losing their seats – Liberal Leader Peter Dutton and Greens Leader Adam Bandt.

The Liberal Party today elected Sussan Ley as Leader – winning the leadership ballot by a narrow margin against Angus Taylor – by 29 votes to 25.

Ley is the Liberal Party’s first Female Leader – clearly a nod to the party’s need to re-connect with Female voters who have deserted the party in droves in recent years.

Ley has a monumental task to unite the Liberal Party and provide a firm Opposition to a re-elected Albanese Government set to enjoy its second honeymoon.

Ted O’Brien was elected as Deputy Liberal Leader while David Littleproud was re-elected as National Leader yesterday.

The Greens will choose their new leader later this week.

Turning back to the Albanese Government – which was sworn in today – not only did the ALP win this election in a landslide, it is also set to win the next election in three years.

Here’s why:

• The House of Representatives has 150 seats.
• A party (or coalition) needs 76 seats to govern in majority.
• The Coalition currently holds 40 seats, so it needs to gain 36 seats to win in 2028.
• The ALP currently holds 92 seats, so the Coalition would need to flip at least 36 of those.

Mathematically, that’s possible.

However, since Federation in 1901, a 36-seat flip by a single party or coalition has never happened.

The largest swings in terms of seats gained at a single election are:

• 1975 (Fraser landslide): Coalition gained 30 seats after the dismissal of the Whitlam government.
• 1996 (Howard victory): Coalition gained 29 seats from Labor.
• 2007 (Rudd victory): Labor gained 23 seats from the Coalition.
• 1983 (Hawke victory): Labor gained 24 seats.

But the ALP can’t take the nation for granted – the massive vote for non-major parties (around a third of the electorate) creates an environment where historic things can happen

A 36-seat gain would not just be historic—it would break records by a wide margin and represent a massive voter repudiation of the incumbent government – but as we said – the growing importance of the preferences of minor parties and independents introduces a new element of uncertainty.

In good news for the re-elected Labor Government, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence, has increased for a second straight week, up 0.8 points to 88.3.

The drivers of the increase were more positive views about the year ahead both in terms of personal finances as well as the performance of the Australian economy.

Consumer Confidence is now at its highest since late February – just after the Reserve Bank last cut interest rates.

And in further good news for the re-elected Government, Inflation Expectations decreased 0.4% to 4.5% this week. Australians now expect inflation of 4.5% over each of the next two years.

This is the lowest Inflation Expectations for two months since early March.

Now to employment and unemployment – the measure that really matters – especially to those who are unemployed – and which must be a priority for the re-elected Albanese Government.

‘Real Unemployment’ in April is 11.2%, up 1% on a month ago - so, an estimated 1.78 million Australians are unemployed.

The driver of this increase in unemployment was more people entering the workforce but not finding work. The workforce increased by 156,000 people in April while overall employment fell by 20,000 – leading to a rise in real unemployment of 176,000.

Within the employment market, there was a significant drop in full-time employment, down 291,000 to 9,094,000, although part-time employment increased 271,000 to 5,072,000 – essentially a shift of workers from full-time employment to part-time employment.

There were increases in people looking for both part-time and full-time jobs. 149,000 more people were looking for part-time jobs and 27,000 more were looking for full-time jobs.

In addition to 1.78 million unemployed, there are almost as many, 1.47 million ‘Under-employed’, equivalent to 9.2% of the workforce in April – (virtually unchanged on a month ago.)

Overall, total unemployment and under-employment – what we might call workforce under-utilisation – was 20.4% of the workforce in April – estimated at over 3.2 million people

Underlying all these labour force movements the biggest driver over the last two-three years has been the unprecedented population growth.

Since the 2022 Federal Election, the population and workforce have both increased by over 1.5 million while employment has increased by over 900,000.

As you can see, there is a gap of over 600,000 people who have joined the workforce but not found employment since the 2022 Federal Election – contributing to a significant increase in unemployment.

These figures show that the re-elected Albanese Government has a significant challenge ahead as it enters its second term in office developing policies to find employment opportunities for the millions of Australians looking for work (unemployed) or looking for more work (under-employed) – this is crucial for improving productivity.