Roy Morgan Update October 31, 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.

And an overseas trip for the Prime Minister to visit the United States has paid dividends in a political sense with support for Albanese Government recovering after a sharp dip last week following the defeat of the referendum.

Support for the Albanese Government increased 3.5% to 53% and is clearly back ahead of the Coalition on 47% on a two-party preferred basis.

Roy Morgan polling of Australians over several decades has consistently shown support for the Government rises when the Prime Minister travels overseas.

Last Monday Prime Minister Albanese landed in the United States and has spent an entire week meeting important politicians and figures in the United States – including a State Dinner with US President Joe Biden.

But, despite the political benefit for the Government, other key indicators were down this week.

This week Government Confidence was down by 6 points to 72 – well below the neutral level of 100 and the lowest it has been since the Albanese Government was elected.

Most Australians – or 57% of them – say the country is going in the wrong direction and only 29% say the country is heading in the right direction.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence fell by 3.2 points to 75.0 this week mostly driven by rising concerns about the next 12 months – both in terms of personal finances and the broader Australian economy.

The increasing discussion in the past week, that the RBA is likely to raise interest rates again at next week’s meeting, has no doubt added to the negativity many feel about their personal situation and the wider economic picture.

In some more positive news, Inflation Expectations were down 0.5% points to 5.2% this week.

Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 5.2% over the next two years.

Despite the fall, Inflation Expectations are still higher than the low of 4.9% we recorded in mid-September, and have averaged 5.3% over the last four weeks during October.

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 September 2023.

30.3% of all mortgage holders are now ‘At Risk’.

This figure equates to an estimated 1,573,000 mortgage holders ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress, up 7,000 on August and 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 30.3% now – the record number of people is because there is now a much larger pool of Australians with mortgages – there are more Australians and a higher proportion have mortgages.

In addition, 20.5% of mortgage holders are now ‘Extremely At Risk’.

This is equivalent to 1,043,000 mortgage holders and is the highest figure for those ‘Extremely At Risk’.

These figures are concerning enough however if the RBA lifts interest rates further in November, and perhaps December as well – these numbers will continue to increase.

The higher than expected ABS Inflation figures for September and the stronger than expected Retail Sales figures for September released this week have both put added pressure on the RBA to raise interest rates again – perhaps as soon as next week.