The ANZ Job ads series showed slower trend growth in February, and was the slowest increase since September 2009.
"In trend terms, the monthly growth rate in total job ads decelerated to 2.3% in February which, while still firmly positive, was the slowest pace of growth since September 2009. Annual trend growth improved to the ‘less bad’ rate of -9.2% YoY, from -18.4% in January, and has now been improving each month since June 2009 (see table 1)."

The latest Roy Morgan survey shows no statistically significant change in support for any political party since the previous poll. If an election had been held the last weekend of February and the first weekend of March Labor would likely have won 55.5% of the vote.

According to an AC Nielsen poll taken between Thursday and Saturday last week 80% of Australians back the federal government's health plan. At the same time there has been a small deterioration in the standing of the Prime Minister and support for Tony Abbott is up.

Roy Morgan research reports that consumers are now 34.3 pts more confident than they were twelve months ago, taking the Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence index to 129.5, up 4.8 in a week. This mirrors our polling with most respondents confident of the direction in which their personal circumstances are heading.