Roy Morgan Update August 15, 2023: ALP Fed Vote up, Consumer Confidence up & Inflation Expectations down

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

And in a week that saw the Matildas become the first Australian football team to reach a World Cup Semi-Final;

Beating France in a nerve-wracking penalty shoot-out at the end of a gripping Quarter-Final over the weekend;

There’s also good news for the Albanese Government, with several key indicators moving in the right direction.

Firstly, the latest Roy Morgan Poll shows ALP support up 1% to 54.5% compared to the Coalition on 45.5% on a two-party preferred basis.

This is the best result for the Government since mid-July.

Government Confidence was up 3 points to 83 this week.

Despite the improvement, this is below the neutral level of 100 because more Australians still believe the country is ‘Heading in the Wrong Direction’ than the ‘Right Direction’.

Consumer Confidence this week rebounded 3.2 points to 78.2, essentially reversing last week’s decrease.

Consumer Confidence this week was up in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, but down slightly in New South Wales.

Driving this week’s rise was increasing confidence about personal finances compared to a year ago and looking forward over the next year.

However, despite the increase, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 24 weeks below the mark of 80 – almost six months in recessionary risk territory.

There was also good news for Inflation Expectations, Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 5.2% over each of the next two years – down 0.2% on last week.

This is the lowest Inflation Expectations for three months since mid-May.

Also this week we have the results of the latest Roy Morgan survey in collaboration with the Australian Retailers Association on Father’s Day.

The survey shows that spending on Father’s Day this year is being hit by the rising cost of living, inflation and interest rates.

The forecasts show 7.6 million Australians plan on buying a Father’s Day gift this year and plan to spend an average of $112 on gifts – down $1 from a year ago.

This will lead to overall spending of $860 million on the day – down by just over 1% from a year ago – equal to about $12 million less than a year ago.

By far the most popular gifts are alcohol and food, followed by clothing, shoes, books, music and games.

Overall spending on Father’s Day at $860 million is set to be about $60 million less than was spent on Mother’s Day held three months ago in mid-May.

Father’s Day will be held on the first Sunday in September in just over two weeks.