South Australian Business Confidence has been consistently above the national figure over the past year despite a sharp drop earlier in 2017 following extensive blackouts in the State that briefly sent the State’s Business Confidence plunging.

South Australia’s six month average Business Confidence of 122.9 in July is clearly above the national six month average of 114.4 and South Australian businesses have consistently been more confident than their peers Australia-wide over the last year since exceeding the national average in August 2016.

Business Confidence – Australia v South Australia

Source: Roy Morgan Business Single Source, Dec 2010–Jul 2017. Average six-monthly sample is 9,800 for Australia. All figures are 6 monthly moving averages.

The latest monthly Roy Morgan Business Confidence for July of 117.0 is the highest monthly figure since June 2016 (119.5) with a strong boost in July partly driven by South Australia’s strong rebound in Business Confidence.

Analysing by industry shows the rise in the national figure was driven by strong increases in several industries including Agriculture, forestry & fishing, Construction, and Information, media and telecommunications which reached a record high.

Monthly Business Confidence — Australia

Source: Roy Morgan Business Single Source, Dec 2010–Jul 2017. Average monthly sample over the last 12 months=1,000.

Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan Research, Gary Morgan, Executive Chairman, Roy Morgan Research, and Julian McCrann, Morgan Poll Manager, Roy Morgan Research say despite claims to the contrary South Australian businesses are more confident than businesses elsewhere:

“The latest Roy Morgan Business Confidence results show that South Australian businesses retain their strong Business Confidence despite the claims made by the Australian Banking Association over the weekend in their effort to ‘torpedo’ the proposed South Australian bank levy.

“Business Confidence in South Australia has been consistently above the national average since August 2016 after bottoming in late 2015 when Malcolm Turnbull claimed the Prime Ministership from Tony Abbott.

“The only dip in Business Confidence in South Australia came earlier this year when
extensive blackouts throughout the State briefly dented confidence – but the South
Australian Government’s decision to reach out to well-known Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk to assist in building the world’s largest battery in South Australia appears to have convinced South Australian businesses that the Weatherill Government does have a plan to deal with the issues confronting the local electricity grid.”