After two months of divisive campaigning and inescapable (and often harmful) conversation about the rights of LGBTQIA+ Australians, the same-sex marriage postal survey results have finally been announced.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics announced the result on their website at 10am today, confirming that Australia's answer to the question, "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?" was a resounding 'YES'.
The ABS confirmed that the percentage of people who voted 'Yes' was 61.6 per cent, and the percentage of 'No' voters was 38.4 per cent.
The ABS also confirmed that 12,727,920 million Australians voted in the non-compulsory survey, which is 79.5 per cent of eligible voters. This is more of a voting turn out than Brexit, the US election, and even Ireland's referendum on same-sex marriage.
Since the 10am announcement, the LGBTQIA+ community, along with all their 'Yes'-voting allies, are celebrating the win on social media.
Absolute scenes #MarriageEquality pic.twitter.com/rITPNFDoig — Anthony Colangelo (@AnthColangelo) November 14, 2017
Others are more reserved, and many noted that while a 'Yes' result is a good beginning - it's only the first hurdle on the way to legislation:
A month ago, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that if the survey showed a 'Yes' result, marriage equality would be legalised before Christmas. In his press conference after the result was announced, Turnbull repeated this promise. Opposition leader Bill Shorten made a statement saying, "Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we legislate."
However, there has been talk of delaying legislation from conservative Senator Cory Bernardi, and backlash from the LGBTQIA+ community to a recent private members bill, brought forward by Senator James Paterson.
