Roy Morgan Update November 12, 2024: ALP support up, Consumer Confidence & Business Confidence

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

Welcome to the Roy Morgan weekly update.

Once again, the polls were wrong in the United States. Under-estimating the Trump vote as they did in 2016 and 2020.

A big week of international news with Donald Trump being re-elected as US President. So far this has had only a minimal impact on the Key Weekly Indicators in Australia.

The Coalition on 50.5% (down 0.5%) still has a narrow lead over the ALP 49.5% on a two-party preferred basis. If a Federal Election were held now, the result would be ‘too close to call’.

Either major party would require the support of minor parties and independents to form government, the latest Roy Morgan survey finds.

Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) dropped 3.5 points to 74 – and well below the neutral level of 100.

This is because an increasing majority of Australians saythe country is going in the wrong direction (56%, up 2%) Only 30% say the country is going in the right direction.

This was a factor in the US Election – so we will be keeping an eye on this.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence was unchanged for a third straight week at 86.7.

You may recall Trump asking the simple question ‘Are you and your family better off now than you were four years ago’.

Each week Roy Morgan asks– ‘Would you say you and your family are better off financially or worse off than you were at this time last year’ – and today many more say worse (48%) than better (22%). And we have been in this negative territory since January 2022.

There were some positive signs. Consumer Confidence has now spent four weeks above 85 for the first time since January 2023.

In addition, there was positive movement in the important ‘buying major household items’ indicator.

Now 26% (up 4%) of Australians say now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items – the highest figure for this indicator for well over 18 months since January 2023.

The improvement in buying sentiment is a good sign for retailers as we head into the most important retailing period of the year – the pre-Christmas and Black Friday period.

You will have probably noticed Christmas decorations and items appearing in shops over the past week.

The other big news was the Reserve Bank’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged despite official inflation dropping to 2.8% for September – within the Reserve Bank’s target range.

The Reserve Bank justified leaving interest rates unchanged by warning that ‘core inflation’ – the ‘trimmed mean’ – remains above the target range.

Inflation Expectations increased to their highest for over a month. ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.3% to 4.9%. Australians are now expecting annual inflation to be 4.9% over the next two years.

Given Trump’s win in the US and concerns about the impact on inflation, it may be the window of opportunity to reduce interest rates, is gone for the moment.

Roy Morgan measures Business Confidence monthly and in October it jumped 12.4 points to 106.7 – the highest it has been for well over two years since April 2022 – just before the last Federal Election.

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 October, businesses grew more confident about investing in the business and about prospects for the economy going forward.

Now 42.9% (up 6.9%) of businesses say the next 12 months is a ‘good time to invest in growing the business’ and a large majority of 59% (up 6.8%) expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next year – the highest figure for this indicator since February 2022.

These were the two largest positive moves in sentiment for Business Confidence, but the good news is that all five indicators moved in a positive direction in October.

This is very good news for the business sector and even the economy as a whole.

Over the two months of September and October, the most confident industries were Public Administration & Defence with a Business Confidence of 160.1, Education & Training on 127.3 and Finance & Insurance on 121.6.

At the other end of the scale Transport, Postal & Warehousing has the lowest Business Confidence at only 72.6, just below Mining on 78.3 and Agriculture on 85.7.