Roy Morgan Update June 25, 2024: ALP Support up, Consumer Confidence & Mortgage Stress

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly Update.

The Albanese Labor Government has edged narrowly ahead of the Coalition on two-party preferred terms:

ALP up 1% to 51% to L-NP 49% - after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton put nuclear energy at the centre of the Coalition’s policy agenda for the Federal election.

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, the latest Roy Morgan survey shows.

The Coalition’s bold announcement they would take a policy of building nuclear power stations to the election has created a clear and essential contrast between the two major parties

The production of cost-effective and clean energy is set to be the key political issue for the next 15 years in Australia.

The mix of power sources including coal, gas, renewables like wind, solar and hydro and potentially nuclear energy are at the heart of this debate - and which energy mix is the most cost effective and efficient in delivering cheaper energy prices and lower carbon dioxide emissions.

Dutton has moved the debate from an ‘academic conversation’ to a ‘real choice’ that people will need to make.

He has outlined plans to build nuclear power stations in seven different electorates around Australia including two in Queensland and NSW and one each in Victoria, WA and SA, the issues concerning building nuclear power stations will vary by states.

The swing to the ALP was strongest in NSW, WA and SA. There was no swing to either party in Victoria, while in Queensland there was a swing to the  LNP.

While it’s too early to say the next election will be a referendum on nuclear energy – the signs are there.

In the longer term, debates about energy production are tied to Australia’s security issues – via the AUKUS agreements to buy nuclear powered submarines, and nuclear medicine – the real health ‘game changer’.

However, week-to-week households are more worried about day-to-day problems, like the cost of living, that can drive political views in the short-term.

So, primary support for the Coalition was down 1% to 37% this week while the ALP closed the gap, up 2% to 31.5%. Support for the Greens was down 0.5% to 13%.

Support for One Nation increased 1% to 6%, support for Other Parties was down 1.5% to 4% and support for Independents was unchanged at 8.5%.

The minor parties and independents will not poll this well at any election as they don’t have candidates standing in all seats.

But we at Roy Morgan believe it’s important to measure the ‘protest’ vote against the major parties.

There were gently positive results for the key confidence measures this week.

Roy Morgan Government Confidence increased 2 points to 77.5 – still over 20 points below the neutral level of 100 and a majority of 54.5% of Australians say the country is going in the wrong direction, only 32%, say the country is heading in the right direction.

There was little movement in consumer confidence. ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence this week was unchanged at 80.4 – still well below the neutral level of 100.

Looking longer-term, Consumer Confidence has now spent a record 73 weeks below the level of 85, but at least now we’re out of the sub-80 recessionary zone.

Inflation Expectations were virtually unchanged this week. Australians now expect annual Inflation to be 4.8% over the next two years.

Inflation Expectations have been remarkably stable over the last six months and have stayed within a narrow band of 4.8% to 5.3% for 29 weeks since early December.

And now to the latest figures on mortgage stress – and the news is good.

Roy Morgan is the only company to measure ‘mortgage stress’ every month. The latest ‘mortgage stress’ figures show a decline of 46,000 in May to 1,514,000 mortgage holders – 29.7% of all Australians with a mortgage are ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress.

The level of mortgage stress is the lowest so far this year.

The decline in mortgage stress is primarily due to rising household incomes - which along with the extended pause in interest rate increases for the last seven months, reduced the financial pressure on some mortgage holders.