Voters in the north east Victorian federal electorate of Indi overwhelming voted ‘yes’ for same-sex marriage in the ABS postal survey.
63.1% of the Indi electorate voted ‘Yes’, 36.9% voted ‘No’ with 82.1% of eligible voters participating.
Cathy McGowan, the independent federal member for Indi today told constituents that “[It’s] A welcome step towards equality – looking forward to a speedy resolution in Parliament.”
All states and territories recorded a majority Yes response. Of 150 federal electoral divisions, 133 recorded a majority Yes response. 17 divisions recorded a majority No response.
12,727,920 million people participated in the voluntary survey – representing 79.5 per cent of the more than 16 million eligible Australians.
Releasing the results at 10am this morning (November 15) Australian Statistician, David W. Kalisch, said the participation rate was high for a voluntary survey.
“This high response rate far exceeds expectations and compares extremely favourably with other voluntary exercises conducted around the world thanks to the strong interest and engagement of eligible Australians in this topic.
“Independent assurers checked the ABS’ approach and actions along the way, and external observers reviewed our coding processes.
“This combined with our efforts to ensure only one response was counted per eligible Australian, means Australians can have confidence these statistics reflect the country’s views,” Kalisch said.
“We’re grateful almost all respondents complied with the survey instructions and this enabled extremely accurate response coding, allowing us to quickly produce these results and complete all the requirements of the Treasurer’s Direction.
“In addition, while costs are still being tallied, the ABS is confident the final cost for the survey will be under $100 million, many million dollars less than the available budget,” Kalisch said.
Official statistics, including a count of responses (Yes, No and Response Not Clear) by Federal Electoral Division, State/Territory and National, are available from www.marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au/results
