Marriage Equality Survey

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:48): Tomorrow, Thursday 15 November, marks the one-year anniversary of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey results being announced. One year ago tomorrow hundreds of South Australians stood together in Hindmarsh Square, soaked from the rain and exhausted from a year-long campaign. Honestly, we were quite concerned. Consistently, the polls were in our favour, but the gap was narrowing. We had had good responses at doorsteps and on the phones, but we also had negative ones. Our opponents were getting more and more desperate and becoming more and more outrageous with their lies and nastiness. For every story of love, celebration and community, there were also stories of hate, fear and discrimination.

I do not normally—and we do not normally—expose ourselves to such odious attacks if we can help it, we usually insulate ourselves from them by carefully choosing who we socialise with and censoring our own behaviour in public and when we are interacting with service providers, but we opened ourselves up to this abuse because we were fighting for our rights. We were fighting for our rights in a situation that was forced on us by an ineffectual Liberal prime minister who could not unite his own party behind climate policy, let alone marriage equality.

So same-sex couples across the nation were to be subjected to a nationwide vote on our civil rights because parliament could not bring itself to legislate. We were being told that we would not be allowed to access this basic legal recognition of our relationships unless millions of other people were allowed to decide whether their fellow Australians should be treated equally. When the ballot became a certainty, a reality, it was clear to us that the time to try to improve the process was over, and we had to go out into the hustings. We accepted what was to be and went to work on a nationwide campaign to win that fight.

At the beginning of the survey process, we took a gamble: we put our money on Australians backing marriage equality and being willing to express that on their survey forms. After thousands of collective hours of rallying, doorknocking and phone canvassing, as we know, that bet paid off: 7,817,274 people voted 'yes' on the survey, 61.6 per cent of those who responded. To put that into context, there were only 17 federal parliament seats out of 150 that had a majority 'no' vote. It was a resounding endorsement of equality.

Australians had used their survey papers to make clear that same-sex couples should be treated equally under the law. South Australia should be particularly proud: 592,528 South Australians voted 'yes', 62.5 per cent of respondents. Not only did we beat the national average for 'yes' votes as a proportion of responses, but we beat the average participation rate, too. Not a single federal electorate in this state voted 'no'. Where Australia said 'yes', South Australia shouted it. That is something for us all to be proud of in this place.

Since the commonwealth Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill passed the House of Representatives on 7 December last year, more than 5,000 same-sex couples have been married. No longer do couples need to travel overseas, away from family and friends, to get married: they can do it right here at home. By June this year, more than 160 same-sex couples had tied the knot in our state. A South Australian couple, James Hemphill and Andrew Chatterton, were among the first same-sex couples to marry on 9 January, the first day that same-sex couples could marry in Australia without a special exemption.

For thousands of other couples around the country, the passage of marriage equality meant that the marriages they had formerly had to travel overseas to obtain were now legally recognised back home—marriages like mine. Importantly, the warnings issued by some conservatives of a slippery slope from marriage equality never came to pass, as we knew they never would. We see now more clearly than before what lies they were. An Essential poll from March this year found that 65 per cent of Australians believe that people of the same sex should be allowed to marry, an increase on the survey result and an affirmation of last year's 'yes' vote. Support is still growing.

One year on, it is timely for us to reflect on just how emphatic a victory we had and just how important marriage equality is. I would like to pay tribute to the many people who worked for decades to make this change and the many more who came on board in the last couple of years. Members of state and federal parliaments, members of this parliament, an array of advocacy groups and, most importantly, passionate LGBTI people from all walks of life—including past and current members of my office, staff like Tom Mooney, Bel Marsden, Patrick Stewart, Iacovos Digenis, Shobaz Kandola and Tara Bates—all worked tirelessly to see this wonderful victory brought about.

I would also like to thank Joseph Scales and Abbie Spencer from the ASU, my union, for their campaign and their support. From the official campaign organisers operating out of Gay's Arcade to the hundreds of volunteers and community groups across the state, the campaign was determined and effective, and we won. I am very proud of those campaigners, and I am very proud of South Australians coming together as a community to deliver such an emphatic 'yes' vote.