Roy Morgan Update October 13, 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.

The indicators this week are mixed, there’s good news on consumer confidence, and whether the country is going in the right or wrong direction, and unemployment is down. However, on the critical inflation figure, Australians expect higher levels of inflation – details in a minute.

Let’s start with voting intention. If a Federal Election were held today, the Albanese Labor government would be re-elected against either One Nation or the Coalition.

Labor’s primary vote is 26%, ahead of One Nation on 24%, the L-NP on 21.5% – 18.5% Liberal and 3% Nationals. The Greens are on 15%; Independents and Other Parties attract 13.5% of the vote.

Special analysis of federal voting intention by State this week shows One Nation polling best in Western Australia (29.5%) after easily winning a State by-election from Labor in late August.

Importantly, support for One Nation in Victoria was down 4% from a fortnight ago to 19% - despite the party’s heavily covered State Election launch last weekend. The Roy Morgan Poll shows no ‘poll bounce’ from the launch and comes after media criticism of Victorian One Nation Leader Warren Pickering for a past history of drug use, driving under the influence, and questionable personal behaviour.

Labor polls best in South Australia (28%) and New South Wales (27.5%) – two States with strong Labor Governments. Just today, New South Wales State Labor announced a subsidy for new gas power plants in the state to ensure reliable power generation when coal-fired power plants close in the next few years.

If Victorian Labor Premier Ben Carroll announced the same policy he would likely stand a far better chance at the State Election.

The Coalition polls best in Victoria (27%) – ahead of the State Election, and South Australia (24%), while the Greens’ best States are also South Australia (20.5%) and Victoria (16.5%).

Roy Morgan has recently moved to two-week Federal Voting to allow for in-depth analysis of the results and trends in each State with the different State-by-State situations driving divergent outcomes around the country.

These results are according to the Roy Morgan Poll conducted over the last fortnight with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 2,655 electors.

On a two-party preferred basis, the ALP is ahead of the L-NP Coalition 53% to 47% and even further ahead of One Nation 54.5% to 45.5%.

A large majority of Australians, 62.5% (down 1%), say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’. However, 24.5% say the country is ‘going in the right direction’. (an improvement of 3%)

Analysis by state shows a majority in all states believe the country is going in the wrong direction. This is highest in Queensland, where 68.5% believe this, and once again lowest in South Australia (54%).

There has been positive movement for Consumer Confidence which increased this week after falling for three straight weeks.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was at 68.0, up 0.9 points.

As mentioned earlier, Australians expect higher inflation: ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.2% to 6.1%.

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

Now to Roy Morgan measures of employment and unemployment – there was mixed news in September with ‘Real Unemployment’ at 10.6%, 1.67 million, down 181,000 on a month ago.

This was due Partly to rising employment – up 49,000 to just over 14 million.

But it was also due to people who stopped looking for work and left the workforce.

The overall result was the workforce was down 132,000 on a month ago to just under 15.7 million.

These two factors: More employment and a smaller workforce means Workforce under-utilisation dropped in September to 19.4% - still high but down 1.4% from a month ago. In real numbers; – an estimated 3.04 million people are unemployed or under-employed.

Overall unemployment and under-employment have remained above 3 million for 22 straight months since late 2024.

The Reserve Bank’s decision to raise interest rates to a 15-year high in late September is set to increase pressure on Australia’s labour market as it struggles to create the jobs to reduce the high level of labour under-utilisation.