Roy Morgan Update February 11, 2025: ALP support down, Consumer Confidence & Business Confidence

In this week's update, we present the latest data on Primary Voting Intention, Consumer Confidence and Business Confidence.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

This week’s Roy Morgan Poll shows the Coalition, up 1.5% to 51.5%, regaining a narrow two-party preferred lead over the ALP (48.5%).

If a Federal Election were held now the result would be a hung parliament and Coalition or ALP would require the support of minor parties and independents to form a government – although the Coalition would be favoured.

The Coalition had a strong week, winning the Prahran by-election in Victoria and the result is still ‘too close to call’ in Werribee in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

The Victorian Liberal Party achieved a massive two-party preferred swing of almost 14% against the Greens in Prahan to win the seat, and a swing of over 10% against the ALP in Werribee to cut the margin to under 1%. Werribee is a traditional stronghold for the governing Labor Party which has held the seat since the 1970s.

The big issues in the by-elections were cost of living and worries about crime – two issues new Victorian Coalition leader Brad Battin, a former policeman, capitalised on.

There are clear similarities to the national campaign with the same issues ranking highly in importance and former policeman Peter Dutton as the leader of the Federal Coalition.

Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) dropped 5 points to 73.5, well below the neutral level of 100.

A majority of 56.5% of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction, while only 30% say the country is heading in the right direction.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was down marginally by 1.8pts to 86.7 –increasing worries about the Australian economy’s performance drove the decline.

Inflation Expectations increased marginally, up 0.1% to 4.7%.

Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 4.7% over each of the next two years.

And now, Australian Business Confidence – and here there was some rare good news for the Albanese Government this week.

Roy Morgan measures Business Confidence monthly and in January there was positive momentum, up 2.3 points to 108.2 – the highest rating since April 2022.

Roy Morgan interviews around 1,500 businesses each month to gauge their views on their company’s prospects as well as their assessment of the broader Australian economy.

In January, businesses grew more confident about their own prospects over the next year with 43.7%, up 3.2%, expecting their businesses to be ‘better off financially’ this time next year.

In addition, a clear majority of 58.6% of businesses expect ‘good times’ for the economy over the next 12 months and only 35.8% expect ‘bad times’.

The increasing likelihood that the Reserve Bank will commence an interest rate cutting cycle is undoubtedly helping boost sentiment among many businesses looking forward.

Over the two summer months of December and January, the most confident industries were Mining and Education & Training. Mining recorded a Business Confidence of 142.3 ahead of Education & Training on 125.2.

Mining and Education & Training have consistently been the two most confident industries over the last several months since July 2024.

Those in Agriculture, forestry & fishing have the lowest Business Confidence of only 84.3, well below Electricity, gas, water & waste on 92.2 and Transport, Postal & Warehousing on 94.1.

And finally, good news for retailers as more Australians plan to buy gifts for Valentine’s Day – coming up this Friday.

This year the number planning to buy Valentine’s Day gifts is 400,000 more than a year ago with 3.8 million Australians to celebrate by buying gifts for loved ones – this includes 2.3 million men and 1.5 million women.

Average spending of $143 will drive a $535 million boost to retailers.