Amid political debate.
Consumer confidence fell 3.5% last week, its third straight weekly fall, according to the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan data. Confidence declined across all sub-indices, with particularly sharp falls in views towards future financial and economic conditions.
ANZ head of economics, David Plank described the sharp deterioration in confidence as “quite disappointing given the great news about the fall in the unemployment rate to a six-year low”.
He said the decline in confidence may reflect the impact of the messy political debate locally and the associated slump in support for the current Turnbull government, revealed in the recent Fairfax-Ipsos poll.
“The sharp fall in future, rather than current conditions provides some evidence of this and the considerable media focus on the impact of the drought may also have affected sentiment. But despite the recent declines, overall consumer confidence is still above its long-term average.
“However it is important to note that households’ views towards economic conditions have been trending down since late June. In four week moving average terms, sentiment around future conditions has fallen below its long term average while the outlook towards current conditions remains above their long term average for the moment and, as a result, so do aggregate economic conditions,” Plank said.
Households’ views towards current financial conditions fell 1.3% last week, following a 1.0% fall in the week prior as sentiment towards future financial conditions plummeted 7.6%, its lowest level in a year. Views towards future economic conditions tumbled 5.3% last week, following a modest decline in the previous week. The ‘time to buy a household item’ sub-index slipped another 1.5%.