Roy Morgan Update October 29, 2024: ALP support down, Consumer Confidence & Inflation Expectations

In this week's update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence & Inflation Expectations.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

This was a good week for the Coalition with a tightening in Federal voting intention - and the party winning its first State Election on the Australian mainland since 2019.

The ALP on 50.5% (down 1.5%) has a narrow lead over the Coalition 49.5% on a two-party preferred basis. If a Federal Election were held now, the result would be ‘too close to call’.

The ALP or Coalition would require the support of minor parties and independents to form government, the latest Roy Morgan survey finds.

On a State-by-State basis there were swings to the Coalition in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania.

The most important result was from Queensland in which the LNP won the Queensland Election with David Crisafulli now sworn in as Queensland’s 41^st Premier.

This indicates their fortunes are improving as we head towards next year’s Federal Election.

The key takeout was the outer suburban and regional swing to the Coalition. Inner city Brisbane was more stable.

In addition, the Greens performed poorly and are struggling to retain the two seats in Queensland they held prior to the election.

This likely reflects the controversy they have created over the past months – opposing housing reforms in Parliament, and the CFMEU demonstration. Our qualitative research found people think the Greens have lost their way after so many years with a strong single-minded environmental platform.

This augurs poorly for the Greens for the next Federal Election.

However, the most important take-out was the issues – and especially the major issue of ‘cost of living’ and youth violence.

The cost-of-living issue led to the big swings against the Government in outer suburban and regional areas of Queensland – where people are suffering the most from high inflation and interest rates.

Cost of living represents the biggest challenge, and opportunity, for both the Coalition and the Albanese Government to exploit leading into the Federal election.

Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) dropped 3.5 points to 77 – and well below the neutral level of 100.

This is because fewer Australians said the country is going in the right direction, (30%, down 3.5%). A majority of 53% still say the Country is going in the wrong direction.

Consumer Confidence also dropped, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was down 1.1 points to 86.4.

As we head into the most important retailing period of the year – the pre-Christmas and Black Friday period - there was a slight softening in indicators related to personal finance and whether now is a good or bad time to buy major household items.

Despite the drop, Consumer Confidence has now spent two weeks above 85 for the first time since January 2023.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations were virtually unchanged this week, up 0.1%.  Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 4.6% over the next two years.

A special Roy Morgan Snap SMS Poll conducted last week, during the first visit to Australia of King Charles and Queen Camilla, asked Australians: “In your opinion, should Australia remain a MONARCHY – or become a REPUBLIC with an elected President? – The results should be a comfort to monarchists.

A majority of Australians, 57% believe Australia should remain a Monarchy (down 3% points since September 2022) while 43% (up 3% points) say Australia should become a Republic with an elected President.

Analysis of the results by gender shows 60% of women favour retaining the Monarchy (down 6%).

However, men are far more evenly split and are virtually unchanged from two years ago with 53% favouring the Monarchy (down only 1%)