ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence virtually unchanged at 106.8 as Melbourne’s sixth lockdown ends

• Now 28% (up 1ppt) of Australians say their families are ‘better off’ financially than this time last year compared to 28% (up 2ppts), that say their families are ‘worse off’ financially.

Future financial conditions

• A decreasing plurality of 37% (down 1ppt) of Australians expect their family to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year, compared to 17% (up 3ppts) that expect to be ‘worse off’ financially.

Current economic conditions

• An unchanged proportion of 19% of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next twelve months while 20% (unchanged), expect ‘bad times’.

Future economic conditions

• In the longer term, over a fifth of Australians, 21% (up 1ppt), are expecting ‘good times’ for the economy over the next five years compared to 16% (unchanged) expecting ‘bad times’.

Time to buy a major household item

• Buying intentions improved this week with 39% (up 2ppts) of Australians, saying now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items while 29% (down 1ppt) say now is a ‘bad time to buy’.

"The notable development this week is a 0.3ppt rise in ‘weekly inflation expectations’ to 5.0%. This is the subindex’s highest value since December 2014. The rise in average petrol prices of more than 10% nationally in the past two weeks likely had an impact on household perceptions of price increases. Consumer confidence softened 0.2% nationally even though Melbourne opened up after more than two months in lockdown. Confidence was up in the city by 1.2% and also across Victoria (1.5%). Sentiment remained positive in Queensland (0.7%) and South Australia (10.4%) but the overall outlook was dampened due to a fall in confidence in New South Wales (-1.8%) and Western Australia (-5.9%)."