This morning the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the results of the national postal vote on marriage equality.
79.5 percent of eligible Australians returned a vote, with 61.6 percent voting in favour of same-sex marriage, and 38.4 voting against. More than 12.5 million votes were counted. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), had the highest level of participation and also the highest level of ‘yes’ votes, at 74 percent. New South Wales (NSW) returned the lowest ‘yes’ votes.
There were a number of events held around Australia this morning as people awaited the results. Following the announcement, the Australian government has pledged to legalise same-sex marriage before the end of the year, at which time Australia will join a number of other countries which allow same-sex marriage including:
- Argentina
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Canada
- Colombia
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Mexico
- Norway
- The Netherlands
- Portugal
- New Zealand
- South Africa
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Uruguay
In September, doctors and medicals students attended an Australian Medical Association rally in Martin Place in support of marriage equality. The AMA has previously stated that same-sex marriage is a health issue, due to the negative impacts of discrimination experienced by the gay community. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer (LGBTQ) Australians are twice as likely as heterosexual Australians to experience homelessness.
The Australian Government’s National Health Mental Health Commission expressed concern about potential negative health impacts of the marriage equality debate. In the lead-up to the vote, there were obvious impacts on mental health with an increase in phone calls to counselling services relating to the issue, as well as an increase in the number of visitors to online mental health services. The Victorian government provided one million dollars to phone counselling and other support services in June and August to allow for recruiting of new volunteers to meet the increase in demand. Such services expect that the demand for counselling around marriage equality will continue for months and possibly years irrespective of today’s outcome.