Roy Morgan Update May 26, 2026: Federal Vote, Consumer Confidence and Inflation Expectations

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

Firstly, the weekly Roy Morgan Poll after the Federal Budget shows ALP primary support down 2% week-on-week to 27.5%, L-NP Coalition down 1% to 23% (Liberals unchanged on 21% and Nationals down 1% to 2%). Support for One Nation increased 1% to 25.5%, Greens up 2% to 13.5%, and support for Independents/ Other Parties unchanged on 10.5%.

The trend is the same, for a second straight week - primary support for the ALP and Coalition are both down, while support for One Nation and Greens are both up.

Importantly, the gap between One Nation (25.5%) and the L-NP Coalition (23%) has widened to 2.5% points – the largest since the Liberal leadership spill in February when Sussan Ley was deposed and Angus Taylor elected as the new Liberal Leader.

The two-party preferred result is closer, ALP 53% ahead of the Coalition 47% based on how electors said they would vote.

The Federal two-party between the ALP and One Nation Morgan Poll estimate is ALP 53.5% ahead of One Nation on 46.5% - a closer result than a week ago.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government with a reduced majority according to interviewing conducted from May 18-24, 2026, with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 1,613 electors.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence decreased 3 points to 65 – now 35 points below the neutral level of 100.

Only 25.5% of electors believe the country is ‘going in the right direction’ (that’s down 1%); a clear majority of 60.5% say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’ (up 2%).

This week ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence is virtually unchanged at 66.1 this week, down a small 0.3 points from a week ago however over 30 points below the baseline neutral level of 100.

Consumer Confidence has now been below the level of 70 for 11 weeks and averaged only 64.8 over this period.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations were also virtually unchanged at 6.1%, up just 0.1% from a week ago.

This means Australians expect annual inflation of 6.1% in each of the next two years.

Inflation Expectations (although still high) are down 1% point from 7.1% a month ago in mid-April.

As predicted when interest rates increased in March, the latest Roy Morgan estimates of mortgage stress for April shows an increase of 1.4% - now 28.2% of Australians with a mortgage are ‘At Risk’ – an estimated 1.47 million Australians – 26,000 more than March.

The increase for April follows the Reserve Bank’s decision to increase interest rates in both February and March.

Of course, since then, the Reserve Bank has raised interest rates again in May – up another 25 basis points to 4.35%.

Roy Morgan forecasts the interest rate increase in May is set to increase mortgage stress to 29.8% of mortgage holders by the end of May, and if the Reserve Bank increases interest rates again by 0.25% in June, mortgage stress will increase to an estimated 1.6 million mortgage holders – up 126,000 from now.

The latest Roy Morgan Australian Readership Report shows 62.1% of Australians (over 14.4 million Australians aged 14+) read magazines in print or online via the web or an app – the ‘cross-platform audience’.

And nearly three quarters of this total cross-platform audience, over 10.8 million people, read print magazines

Magazines with the largest cross-platform audience are Better Homes and Gardens and Woman’s Day – both reaching an audience of over 2 million, The Australian Women’s Weekly and New Idea – both reaching over 1.6 million, and Take 5 (Weekly), National Geographic, TV Week, and Take 5 Bumper Monthly – all with audiences of well over 1 million.

Just looking at the print magazines – several large categories are read by millions of Australians.

Now 6.3 million read Food & Entertainment Magazines in print.

Almost 4 million read Home & Garden Magazines and General Interest Magazines.

Well over 2.3 million read Mass Women’s Magazines.

And Business, Financial & Airline Magazines are read by over 1.4 million, and over 1.2 million read Health & Family Magazines.