Confidence drops ahead of federal budget

Consumer confidence has fallen ahead of next week's federal budget, although less dramatically than the same time last year.

Consumer confidence fell last week largely due to concerns about next week's federal budget and the state of the government's finances.

Confidence was down 2.8 per cent, completely reversing the previous week's 2.8 jump, ANZ/Roy Morgan's consumer confidence barometer found.

Despite the drop off, ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan on Tuesday said consumers seemed less worried about this year's federal budget than they did in the lead up to the 2014 budget.

"While confidence fell sharply in the weeks ahead of last year's budget, this year we are seeing a more modest decline," he said.