Roy Morgan Update April 30, 2024: ALP Support unchanged, Consumer Confidence & Inflation Expectations

In this week's Update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence & Inflation Expectations.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

In a week when the domestic focus was on the huge societal issue of male violence against women, and the continuing debate about rights and wrongs surrounding the war in Gaza,

The Albanese Labor Government retained the lead for the second week in a row - with support unchanged on 52% ahead of the Coalition on 48% on a two-party preferred basis.

If an election were held now the ALP would be re-elected with a slim majority - as they have now, the latest Roy Morgan Poll shows.

The primary voting intention for both major parties improved this week.

The Coalition was up 1% to 36.5% and the ALP was up 1% to 31.5%. The increases for the major parties came at the expense of the Greens, down 2% to 14%.

One Nation support was unchanged at 5.5% with 12.5% supporting Other Parties or Independents.

There were mixed results with other key indicators this week.

A majority of Australians, 54%, say the country is heading in the wrong direction – less than a third, 31.5%, say the country is heading in the right direction – As a result, Roy Morgan Government Confidence is well below the neutral level of 100.

Government Confidence is 77.5 – up 1 point in a week. So, we have an improvement but it is still very poor.

In terms of consumers, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increased 0.8pts to 81.1 this week – an improvement, but nowhere near enough.

Of key importance is, only 8% of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the economy over the next year and only 19% say they are ‘better off’ financially than this time a year ago.

Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 65 weeks below the level of 85. Looking back over the last few months, Consumer Confidence has now moved in a narrow band of 80-85 over the last 21 weeks (nearly five months) since early December.

The RBA meets next week – and is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged this time. Expectations that the RBA would start reducing interest rates later this year have lessened following last week’s official ABS inflation numbers.

In addition, as Roy Morgan reported last week, the momentum in mortgage stress and cost of living pressures is beginning to abate as household incomes increase and mortgage stress showed the first signs of easing – at 30.3% of mortgage holders, It’s still painfully high.

The Federal Budget, to be delivered the week after, will have a big impact on what the RBA does for the rest of the year.

Inflation Expectations were up 0.3% to 5.3%. Australians now expect annual Inflation to be 5.3% over the next two years.

Like Consumer Confidence, Inflation Expectations have stayed within a narrowband of 4.8% to 5.3% since early December.

It’s easy to understand where these concerns about inflation are coming from. the ABS March Quarter CPI reported at a higher than expected 1% and the very visible high price of petrol.

Average retail petrol prices in Australia increased to $2.12 per litre last week – the highest they’ve been for nearly two years since July 2022 – and just a touch off the record high of $2.13 per litre in March 2022 just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s likely petrol prices could hit a new record high this week.

Looking longer-term, average retail petrol prices in Australia have now spent a record 42 weeks (more than nine months) above $1.80 per litre.

More recently, since late January average retail petrol prices have averaged $2 per litre.