Roy Morgan Update October 3, 2023: Consumer Confidence, Federal Vote & Mortgage Stress

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

After a big weekend of sporting action we are now less than a fortnight before the referendum on ‘The Voice’; our latest Roy Morgan poll last week suggested the referendum is destined to fail with a clear majority set to vote against.

And the Government’s decision to bring the referendum appears to be having an impact on their overall voter support.

Firstly, to the Key Weekly Indicators.

The latest Roy Morgan Poll shows ALP support has dropped this week, down 2% points to 52% with the Coalition on 48% on a two-party preferred basis.

This result is similar to last year’s Federal Election and the equal lowest result for the Albanese Government so far this year.

This week Government Confidence is down slightly with 54% of Australians saying the country is going in the wrong direction.

Only 32.5% now say the country is heading in the right direction leading to a Government Confidence Rating of only 78.5 – well below the neutral level of 100.

There was better news on the consumer front with Consumer Confidence up 1.8 points to 78.2 this week.

Despite the increase, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 31 weeks in recessionary risk territory below the mark of 80 – equivalent to seven months at this level and including the entire September quarter.

The indicators that improved the most this week related to personal financial situations compared to a year ago and looking forward over the next 12 months.

Inflation Expectations were down 0.2% points to 5.2% this week, reversing some of last week’s sharp increase.

Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 5.2% over the next two years – in line with the average Inflation Expectations we have seen over the last four weeks.

And next we look at the pressing issue for many Australians of mortgage stress.

Roy Morgan is the only company that measures ‘mortgage stress’ every month and the latest Roy Morgan ‘mortgage stress’ figures are out for August 2023.

30.2% of all mortgage holders are now ‘At Risk’.

This figure equates to an estimated 1.57 million mortgage holders ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress – a new record high.

If you’re looking at the chart and see 35.6% of mortgage holders ‘At Risk’ during the Global Financial Crisis and only 30.2% now – the record number of people is because there is now a much larger pool of Australians with mortgages.

In addition, over one-in-five mortgage holders are now ‘Extremely At Risk’. That’s 21% of all mortgage holders.

This is equivalent to 1,066,000 mortgage holders and is the highest figure for those ‘Extremely At Risk’ – also a new record high.

These figures are concerning enough however if the RBA lifts interest rates further over the next few months – perhaps due to renewed inflationary pressures with energy and petrol prices so high – these numbers will continue to increase.