15 November 2017

All states and territories recorded a majority Yes response. Of the 150 Federal Electoral Divisions, 133 recorded a majority Yes response, and 17 Federal Electoral 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, 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,” he said.

The ABS had rigorous methods to avoid fraud, manage risks and protect the integrity and privacy of all responses.

“Independent assurers checked our approach and actions along the way, and external observers reviewed our coding processes,” he said.

“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.”

The detailed results published for national, states and territories and Federal Electoral Divisions are accompanied by a statement on the quality and integrity of the results.

“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,” he said.

Mr Kalisch acknowledged the large number of agencies across Government and the private sector, including the Australian Electoral Commission, the Department of Human Services and Australia Post, that assisted the ABS to undertake this survey.

“With their help, the ABS conducted this survey to the standard expected by the community, and to meet the requirements of the Legal Direction from the Treasurer.

“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,” he said.

The 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

Key results

Region	Yes	No	Total	Participation rate
Australia	61.6%	38.4%	100%	79.5%
New South Wales	57.8%	42.2%	100%	79.5%
Victoria	64.9%	35.1%	100%	81.7%
Queensland	60.7%	39.3%	100%	77.9%
South Australia	62.5%	37.5%	100%	79.7%
Western Australia	63.7%	36.3%	100%	78.4%
Tasmania	63.6%	36.4%	100%	79.7%
Northern Territory(a)	60.6%	39.4%	100%	58.4%
Australian Capital Territory(b)	74.0%	26.0%	100%	82.4%

(a) Includes Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (within the Division of Lingiari).

(b) Includes Jervis Bay (within the Division of Fenner) and Norfolk Island (within the Division of Canberra).

Federal Electoral Divisions by majority results

	Number of Divisions
Range of response result	Yes	No
50 to less than 60%	38	11
60 to less than 70%	67	5
70 to less than 80%	24	1
80 to less than 90%	4	0
Total	133	17

Federal Electoral Divisions by participation

Participation range	Number of Divisions
50 to less than 60%	1
60 to less than 70%	3
70 to less than 80%	70
80 to less than 90%	76
Total	150

Further information at the Federal Electoral Division level is available at www.marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au/results