The latest Roy Morgan consumer confidence poll shows that people are wary of spending money as yet another series of crises evolve.
The overall drop in consumer confidence was just below three points but in Queensland it fell a massive 10.4 points and in Western Australia five points.
It has put the confidence level below the same week in February a year ago at the height of the pandemic.
Driving the decreases were falls in sentiment regarding the performance of the Australian economy over the next year and next five years.
In regard to current financial conditions, the number of families who feel they are better off compared to this time last year increased by only one point, while those who feel they are worse off also increased by two points.
Fewer Australians were also looking forward to a better 2022, with the number of those expecting “good times” also taking a hit.
In the longer-term, 15 per cent (down 4 ppts) of Australians are expecting “good times” for the economy over the next five years (the lowest figure for this indicator for 18 months since early August 2020 during Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19) compared to 18 per cent (up 1 ppt) expecting “bad times”.
Buying intentions are virtually unchanged with 35 per cent (up 1 ppt) of Australians, saying now is a good time to buy major household items.
ANZ head of Australian economics, David Plank, said most of the decline took place during the latter part of the week as daily COVID cases breached 1,000 in Western Australia, massive storms battered the east coast and the invasion of Ukraine began.
“Confidence fell 1.8 per cent in Victoria, 10.9 per cent in Queensland and 4.9 per cent in WA, while it rose 0.7 per cent in NSW and 3.6 per cent in SA,” he said.
“The fact Queensland and WA fell the most suggests local factors were key. Household inflation expectation surged to a new seven-year high at 5.3 per cent as retail petrol prices continued to climb higher.”
