Australians are shopping again but Roy Morgan polling shows consumer confidence is still low. Photo: Thomas Lucraft.
Australians are starting the year feeling generally happy and seemingly becoming okay again about spending, according to the latest Roy Morgan weekly polling update.
And if a federal election were called now, Labor would be returned but with a noticeably decreased majority.
The Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence scale is up three points, which the pollster says is the usual “New Year’s bump”.
“The largest driver of the recovery was a boost to buying sentiment during the post-Christmas sales period, as well as more positive views about the state of the Australian economy looking forward,” the report says.
“Despite the increase, this is the lowest Consumer Confidence to start a year since 1991 – 35 years ago.”
Morgan’s Inflation Expectations scale dropped 0.2 per cent to 5.4 per cent to start 2026, meaning Australians expect inflation of 5.4 per cent in each of the next two years.
“This is good news and the first time weekly Inflation Expectations have fallen for nearly three months, since mid-October,” the pollster states.
The new data is analysed from the first Roy Morgan Poll since the Bondi terror attack in December.
It shows support for the Coalition has grown and now sits at 30.5 per cent – up three per cent since the last poll in mid-December and pushing it just ahead of Labor at 30 per cent.
Support for One Nation sits at 15 per cent, the Greens are on 13.5 per cent and Independents and other parties are on 11 per cent.
On a two-party preferred basis, however, the ALP remains ahead on 52 per cent, which is down 2.5 per cent from mid-December. The Coalition currently sits at 48 per cent on two-party preferred.
“If a federal election were held now the ALP would be returned to government with a decreased majority,” the report says.
“The government’s two-party preferred lead is the smallest since the federal election.”
ALP support had dropped and Coalition support increased on a two-party preferred basis across all states, both men and women and all ages.
The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating plunged seven points to 74 in January, after the Bondi shootings.
According to how this rating is calculated, scores below 100 are in the negative realm.
Only 19.5 per cent of Australians say the country is “going in the right direction” according to the poll, while 45.5 per cent say the country is “going in the wrong direction”.
Nevertheless, business confidence is up and Australia’s businesses grew significantly more confident in December, up 6.3 points to 105.0.
That is the highest rating for the indicator since March 2025.
The biggest driver of the change was businesses being significantly more confident about their own prospects which drove more than 80 per cent of the monthly increase.
Estimates show mortgage stress down in November by 0.6 per cent.
The latest Roy Morgan survey was conducted with a representative Australia-wide cross-section of 1676 electors, in the week of January 5-11, 2026.
Its Business Confidence series is based on interviews with 1200 businesses each month to gauge their views on their company’s prospects as well as their assessment of the broader Australian economy.
The Business Confidence rating works by calculating these views with a score based on the net difference between positive and negative answers to key questions, with scores above 100 indicating optimism and below 100 suggesting pessimism.
A separate Roy Morgan SMS Poll was conducted in December specifically into views on blame and responsibility for terrorism.
It showed that most (36 per cent) blame terrorists and extremists, while 29 per cent blamed politicians – with some of that group specifically blaming the Federal Government.
In the terrorists/extremists blame category, people who mentioned this group cited extreme religious and political beliefs as the main drivers.
