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Further implications
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will release weekly national statistics indicating the number of votes it has received from Tuesday, October 3, until the survey closes on November 7. The ABS will not, however, be issuing a progressive tallies of the number of 'yes' and 'no' votes it has received.
The results of the postal survey are expected to be known by November 15, 2017.
An article published in The University of Melbourne's Pursuit magazine explains what will happen. 'Immediately following the survey, the ABS will announce how many of the 16 million enrolled Australian voters responded to the survey, and the number who voted yes and no. This will be broken down by electorate, state and national - as well as participation by age and gender.
The vote will be decided by a simple majority of people who return the form, and depending on the result, the government will decide if it will allow consideration of a private member's bill to legalise same-sex marriage.'
If the postal ballot results in a 'no' vote, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has indicated that the Government would not support a private members' bill on the issue going ahead in the Parliament.
If the postal ballot results in a 'yes' vote, Turnbull has promised to allow the Coalition government a private member's bill to be introduced to the Parliament in the final sitting fortnight of 2017 to change the definition of marriage. Government representatives in both houses of Parliament would be given a conscience vote on the issue.
Labor representatives will have a conscience vote on same-sex marriage until the next election. After the 46th session of Parliament, members of the ALP will all be bound to vote in favour of changing the law to allow same-sex couples the opportunity to marry. It is estimated that most Labor representatives currently support same-sex marriage and would vote in favour of it if a private members bill is put this year.
The Greens support same-sex marriage and have been campaigning for marriage equality for more than a decade. They are predicted to vote in favour of any private members bill amending the Marriage Act to allow same-sex marriage.
The Nick Xenophon Party supports same-sex marriage and has, as part of its policy platform, the intention to 'remove all discrimination from the Marriage Act to ensure that all people, regardless of their sex or gender identity, have the opportunity to marry.'
Currently it is not possible to predict what the outcome of the postal ballot will be. An analysis by Peter Hartcher published in the Sydney Morning Herald on September 15, 2017, noted, 'The great majority of Australians think that marriage should be available to same-sex couples. On the average of the six credible polls of the last six weeks, the 'yes' has an advantage of two-to-one.'
Some commentators have suggested that such figures indicate that the 'yes' vote will inevitably prevail. Hartcher warns that this may not be the case. He suggests there are a number of impediments to the anticipated success of the 'yes' case. He writes, 'First is complacency and a failure of turnout... it all depends on who sends their ballot paper in and who doesn't. That's where it will be won and lost. And we don't have a lot of experience in this country about forecasting turnout.'
Hartcher further notes, 'The second big risk for the "yes" campaign is the behaviour of some of its own supporters. A campaign leader poses the question: "What's working for the 'no' campaign so far? It's the actions of the crazies on our side."'
It has been suggested that extreme and unattractive behaviour from either the 'yes' or the 'no' supporters will have the capacity to alter the vote of those who are relatively undecided.
Hartcher suggests that the third development that could see the 'yes' vote fail to succeed would be if voters were diverted from the central question of whether or not they supported marriage equality to peripheral issues. The vote could be lost because some people equated same-sex marriage with the 'Safe Schools' program being conducted in Victorian schools, or because they were persuaded to see same-sex marriage as creating a second 'stolen generation', with children being denied access to their biological parents.
Hartcher looks in particular at another issue raised by former Prime Minister John Howard, how the rights of those with religious objections to same-sex marriage would be accommodated, and claims that this is also essentially a diversionary tactic which could change the vote of those who would otherwise support same-sex marriage.
If the postal vote is 'yes' and a same-sex marriage private members bill were to go before Parliament, then there is also the possibility that concern about these secondary issues, particularly protecting members of the community with conscience-based objections to same-sex marriage, could undermine Parliamentary support for marriage equality.
It is likely that the postal survey will result in a 'yes' vote and that a private members bill allowing same-sex marriage will then pass through the federal Parliament before the end of the year; however, until these two events have actually occurred no certainty on the question is possible.