ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence down by 2.6pts to 99.2 as flooding impacts Queensland and COVID soars in WA

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence decreased 2.6pts to 99.2 during the last week of February. Consumer Confidence is now 13.1pts below the same week a year ago, February 27/28, 2021 (111.3) and 2pts below the 2022 weekly average of 101.2.
It should be noted that almost two-thirds of the interviews for this week’s Consumer Confidence were conducted prior to Russia invasion of Ukraine. For those 947 interviews conducted from Monday – Wednesday (Feb 21-23) Consumer Confidence was 100.8, while for the 583 interviews conducted from Thursday-Sunday (Feb 24-27) Consumer Confidence had dropped to 97.1. 
Driving the fall in this week’s Consumer Confidence were big falls in Queensland and Western Australia. Consumer Confidence in Queensland was down a significant 10.4pts to 90.0 as 18,000 homes have been flooded across the region according to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Western Australia also took a turn this week, down 5pts to 97.4 as their Covid cases increased rapidly for first the first time during the pandemic.
Driving the decreases were falls in sentiment regarding the performance of the Australian economy over the next year and next five years.

Current financial conditions

• Now 28% (up 1ppt) of Australians say their families are ‘better off’ financially than this time last year compared to 32% (up 2ppts), that say their families are ‘worse off’ financially.

Future financial conditions

• Looking forward, 34% (down 1ppt) of Australians expect their family to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year, compared to 21% (up 2ppts) that expect to be ‘worse off’ financially.

Current economic conditions

• However, just 14% (down 1ppt), of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next twelve months compared to 25% (up 4ppts), that expect ‘bad times’.

Future economic conditions

• In the longer term, 15% (down 4ppts), of Australians are expecting ‘good times’ for the economy over the next five years (the lowest figure for this indicator for 18 months since early August 2020 during Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19) compared to 18% (up 1ppt) expecting ‘bad times’.

Time to buy a major household item

• Buying intentions are virtually unchanged with 35% (up 1ppt) of Australians, saying now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items while 34% (unchanged) say now is a ‘bad time to buy’.

ANZ Head of Australian Economics, David Plank, commented:

Consumer confidence dropped 2.6% last week amid rising COVID cases in WA, floods in Queensland and northern NSW and escalating geopolitical tensions. Most of the decline took place during the latter part of the week as daily COVID cases breached 1,000 in WA, massive storms battered the east coast and the invasion of Ukraine began. Confidence fell 1.8% in Victoria, 10.9% in Queensland and 4.9% in WA, while it rose 0.7% in NSW and 3.6% in SA. The fact Queensland and WA fell the most suggests local factors were key. Household inflation expectation surged to a new seven-year high at 5.3% as retail petrol prices continued to climb higher."

Related Research Reports

The latest Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Monthly Report is available on the Roy Morgan Online Store. It provides demographic breakdowns for Age, Sex, State, Region (Capital Cities/ Country), Generations, Lifecycle, Socio-Economic Scale, Work Status, Occupation, Home Ownership, Voting Intention, Roy Morgan Value Segments and more

Consumer Confidence – Monthly Detailed Report in Australia.
Business Confidence – Monthly Detailed Report in Australia.
Consumer Banking Satisfaction - Monthly Report in Australia.

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