Roy Morgan Update April 1, 2025: ALP support unchanged, Consumer Confidence and Inflation Expectations

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

This week’s Roy Morgan Poll shows little change on many of the key indicators in the week Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered a pre-election Federal Budget and only days later Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the Federal Election last Friday.

One wildcard to look out for during this Election campaign is US President Donald Trump’s actions in America – which could have unpredictable and unexpected impacts on people’s voting intentions in Australia.

The first big impact may be felt tomorrow with President Trump’s tariff announcement – which Trump has called ‘Liberation Day for America’ – which could include tariffs on several Australian goods.

If a Federal Election were held now the ALP would be returned to Government with an increased majority of 53% (unchanged from a week ago) ahead of the L-NP Coalition on 47% on a two-party preferred basis, the latest Roy Morgan survey finds.

This week’s result shows that despite Treasurer Jim Chalmers promising modest income tax cuts in the Federal Budget; and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promising a halving of the petrol fuel excise in the Opposition’s Budget response, neither proposal resonated with voters - primary support for both major parties declined in the opening days of the election campaign.

Primary support for both major parties was down with the Coalition down 0.5% to 35% and the ALP down 1.5% to 32%. Minor parties benefited, especially One Nation, up 1.5% to 5.5%.

The Greens increased 0.5% to 13%, Independents were up 0.5% to 10.5% and support for Other Parties dropped 0.5% to 4%.

Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) was virtually unchanged this week at 80.5.

This indicator remains well below the neutral level of 100 because more Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction (51.5%), than the right direction (32%).

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence improved slightly, up 1.1 points to 85.3 after the Federal Budget – the first increase since the jump after interest rates were cut in mid-February.

As we can see from other indicators though, the political response was muted.

Looking forward next week’s reading of Consumer Confidence will give an immediate reaction by consumers to today’s decision by the Reserve Bank to leave interest rates unchanged – despite many calling (and hoping) for further interest rate cuts.

One of the big – and new – factors for the Reserve Bank to consider is US President Donald Trump’s new tariff threats – including on Australian goods such as apples, pears, as well as aluminium and steel – we will find out the extent of these tariffs in the coming days.

The simple fact is that these “Trump Tariffs” are inflationary and may prevent the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates again in the near future.

Inflation Expectations dropped 0.2% to 4.7% this week – below the long-term average.

Australians now expect inflation of 4.7% over each of the next two years.

The latest Roy Morgan data reveals 23% of Australians plan to travel overseas in the next 12 months, up from 16% in October 2022 when final pandemic-era restrictions on travel were lifted.

However, domestic travel continues to be at the heart of how Australians travel with 57% of Australians planning a domestic trip in the next 12 months (up from 52% a year ago).

Typically, when consumer confidence is high, or increasing, travel and travel intentions also increase. However, this pattern was disrupted during the pandemic – when travel and travel plans were put on hold despite strong consumer confidence.

Since October 2022, travel intentions have bounced back despite low levels of consumer confidence.

For further information and detail on Australians travel intentions, click below and head over to the Roy Morgan website.

And now a look across the Tasman to the political situation in New Zealand.

In March the latest Roy Morgan Poll shows the main governing party National has increased its support by 2% to 32.5% and is now 5% ahead of the Opposition Labour Party on 27.5%.

However, neither major party has managed to attract at least a third of the electorate’s support for the last six months – a total of 40% of voters support minor parties.