Matthew Abraham: Rosy surveys aside, South Australia’s confidence is in strife

Confidence surveys might be positive but down on the street, bare, dusty shelves tell a different story, writes Matthew Abraham.

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Most mere mortals are born with superpowers they don’t even know they possess.

I’m no Clark Kent, but one of my superpowers is a sixth sense about a shop that’s going bust. Step inside and the bad vibe is as palpable as someone popping the locks on a lead-lined box of Kryptonite.

This, possibly not unique, superpower was nurtured when serving behind the counter at mum and dad’s deli in Duthy St, Malvern.

If we had a quiet day on the double-cut ham-and-salad rolls front, we didn’t need an accountant to tell us the day’s takings were down in Smallville.

So, worried looks on the faces of counter staff is a dead giveaway, because they know long before the bosses that things are going pear-shaped.

It’s a more accurate measure than all the expensive surveys that try to gauge an economy’s health.

But a struggling business has two other telltale signs — empty shelves and dust.

Dad’s shelves were clean — even the apples were polished by hand — and groaning with all sorts of stuff, from anchovies to Tarzan’s Grip.

“Son, if you don’t have it, you can’t sell it,” he told me.

This might seem bleeding obvious so how come so many Adelaide shops now just carry one of any item in stock, or none?

“We can get it in from Melbourne by Friday” is the well-stocked excuse. Or “have you tried online?”

Twice in the past fortnight, we’ve walked into major outlets with near-empty shelves covered in dust — a sure sign the workers have abandoned hope.

Like trying to fool a sniffer dog at a rave party, it’s hard to hide the scent of a business pretending everything is hunky dory while the boss is tapping “liquidators” into Google.

It’s just as hard to convince people an economy is going gangbusters when the evidence around them tells a different story.

Let’s take a dive into BankSA’s excellent, recently-released quarterly consumer and business confidence State Monitor report.

It tracks SA’s optimists and pessimists using a baseline of 100 points — if the index falls below 100, it means SA has more glass half-empties than glass half-fulls.

It showed business confidence down only slightly to a still bullish 118.1 — but those surveyed had a less than cheery view of the year ahead.

This was somehow good news.

The fine print reveals their intention to create extra jobs had fallen 17 points, the biggest drop in five years.

“Business confidence has softened marginally for the past two surveys, moving down slightly from the eight-year high level reported in July last year, but remaining at a higher range for the past three surveys, compared to the confidence levels of the past seven years,” it says.

Run that by me again?

Adelaide’s Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor tweeted how pleased she was SA’s business confidence “remains near its eight-year high”.

She’s a born optimist, then. But what about SA consumers?

Are SA shoppers dangling over a cliff of pessimism? Picture: Matt Loxton

Consumer confidence decreased by 4.4 index points to hover on 101.9 — a plunge of 7.5 points since July last year. We’re dangling over the pessimism cliff.

Consumers surveyed were negative on seven of the 10 factors gauging their mood and these are quite revealing.

They include reduced confidence that our financial position will improve in the next year, a more negative sentiment about our overall household situation and “pride in South Australia has decreased”.

Fears over the impact of unemployment on our households remained unchanged.

The two biggest factors driving the pessimism were that we reported fewer “significant purchases” in the past three months and doubted we’d make any more big buys in the next three.

Maybe this explains the brazen increase in stealing from shops. Counter staff at one major tradie supplier told me last week that one thief had even waltzed out the front doors with a welding unit the size of a bar fridge tucked under his arm.

Little wonder that we reported a negative “perception that local businesses have decreased in business activity”.

Blank looks, low stock and dust — you don’t need to be Superman to work that one out.