Roy Morgan Update July 2, 2024: Inflation Expectations Up, ALP Support steady & Consumer Confidence

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

I’m Julian McCrann, the Roy Morgan Poll Manager, stepping in for Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine who is unavailable.

The Albanese Government on 51% has a narrow lead over the Coalition on 49% on two-party preferred terms, the latest Roy Morgan survey shows.

If a Federal Election were held now the result would be a hung parliament with the ALP likely to form a minority government with the support of minor parties and independents.

This week Inflation Expectations jumped 0.4% to 5.2% - the biggest weekly jump so far this year.

This increase came in the week the official monthly ABS inflation showed a higher-than-expected result at 4% for May 2024, up from 3.6% in April.

The ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations indicator now shows that Australians expect annual inflation to be 5.2% over the next two years – the highest figure for two months.

Despite the jump, Inflation Expectations have been remarkably stable over the last seven months and have stayed within a narrow band of 4.8% to 5.3% for 30 weeks since early December.

Primary voting support for the major parties was little changed with the Coalition down 0.5% to 36.5% and the ALP unchanged on 31.5%.

The virtually unchanged result came after the unexpected release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as well as higher-than-expected ABS monthly inflation at 4% leading to calls from many economists for the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.

This week millions of Australians will start receiving income tax cuts which the Albanese Government hopes will strengthen their support as many Australians deal with a high cost of living.

Support for the Greens was also unchanged at 13%.

Support for One Nation dropped 1.5% to 4.5%, support for Other Parties increased 1.5% to 5.5% and support for Independents increased 0.5% to 9%.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence increased 1 point to 78.5 – still over 20 points below the neutral level of 100 – and a majority of 54% of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction, only 32.5%, say the country is heading in the right direction.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increased 0.9 points to 81.3 – still well below the neutral level of 100.

Looking longer-term, Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 74 weeks below the level of 85 – almost 18 months.

Both key indicators in New Zealand – Government Confidence and Consumer Confidence – slid further below the neutral level of 100 in June.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence dropped 13 points to 83 in June with a slim majority of 52.5% of New Zealanders saying the country is ‘heading in the wrong direction’.

ANZ-Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence, the measure of consumer’s economic sentiment hit, was down 1.7 points to 83.2.

The Roy Morgan Poll shows a marginal improvement for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s National-led Government in June – but still the second lowest result since the election.

Support for National increased 1.5% to 35% in June while support for the main Opposition Labour dropped 2.5% to 27.5% - a gap of 7.5% points between the two major parties.

In fact, a greater share of electors, 37.5%, support one of the minor parties including the Greens, ACT, New Zealand First and the Maori Party.