page_title: Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey
section_title: Demographic factors
hierarchical_section_title: Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey / Result / Demographic factors
caption_attribution_description: Income, religion, education and language data of electorates, plotted against results of Australian same sex survey results. http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/Home/%A9+Copyright?opendocument
context_page_description: The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey was a national survey designed to gauge support for legalising same-sex marriage in Australia. The survey was held via the postal service between 12 September and 7 November 2017. Unlike voting in elections and referendums, which is compulsory in Australia, responding to the survey was voluntary.
  A survey form, instructions, and a reply-paid envelope were mailed out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to every person on the federal electoral roll, asking the question "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?" The ABS outlined processes to ensure eligible Australians lacking access to post could participate.
  The survey returned 7,817,247 "Yes" responses and 4,873,987 "No" responses. An additional 36,686 responses were unclear and the total turnout was 12,727,920.
  Prior to the survey, the Liberal–National Coalition government had pledged to facilitate a private member's bill to legalise same-sex marriage in the Parliament in the event of a "Yes" outcome. This allowed parliamentary debate and a vote eventually leading to the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
context_section_description: A majority of survey participants returned affirmative responses in 133 electorates. The 17 electorates with majority negative responses were predominantly in Western Sydney (12 electorates), as well as rural Queensland (three electorates) and outer suburban Melbourne (two electorates). Defying a national trend, in New South Wales, country participants were more likely to vote yes than their city counterparts.
  Most electorates either swung heavily in favour or against same sex marriage. There were only 25 electorates in which the result was between 45 and 55 per cent. In contrast, 41 electorates at the 2016 Australian federal election had two party preferred results within the same degree of margin (±5 per cent). At the 2013 election, 49 electorates were as approximately close.
  The heavy concentration of negative responses in working class multicultural Western Sydney led to speculation about what were the underlying economic and demographic factors. The Guardian noted that the portion of persons holding religious beliefs in an electorate was one of the strongest factors, calculating a -0.8 correlation between religion and responding affirmatively. Islam, followed by Oriental Orthodox and Catholicism were the strongest predictors of negative responses. Affirmative responses were correlated to income and education, and to a lesser extent, being born in Australia.
  There was a higher percentage of responses to the survey from 18 and 19 year olds than any other age group under 45, despite concerns during the survey period that this group would be disenfranchised.
caption: Australia's 150 electorates plotted between survey responses and selected demographic characteristics (derived from 2016 Australian census)
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