![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The 2017 Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey led to the adoption of same-sex marriage. Using ecological analysis, this paper tests five hypotheses to explain voting in the plebiscite. Social characteristics exerted a strong influence on the vote, with a higher ‘yes’ vote in more affluent and suburban electorates, and a higher ‘no’ vote in electorates with large numbers of traditional households. The strongest predictor of a ‘no’ vote was electorates with large proportions of newly arrived immigrants. Electorates that had larger proportions of female same-sex couples displayed a higher ‘yes’ vote. Higher turnout in the plebiscite benefitted the ‘yes’ vote. Finally, the views of the local MP on the issue were positively related to the result in their electorate.
2017年澳大利亚婚姻法后续调查导致了同性婚姻的通过。本文采用生态学分析，测试了对投票的五种假设。社会特征对于投票的影响很大，更富裕的郊区人口投赞同票的比例相对要高，而大量传统家庭的选民则投否定票。很大比例的新近移民投反对票。更多的女性同性恋夫妇投赞同票。从投票结果看，更多的人投赞同票。最后，当地议员对同性婚姻的观点与选举结果成正相关。
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to Andrew Banfield, Katrine Beauregard, Manon Tremblay and Jill Sheppard for their comments on an earlier version of the paper, and to two anonymous referees from this journal for their constructive suggestions for revision.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University. He works on comparative political behaviour and has directed the Australian Election Study since 1987.
Feodor Snagovsky is a doctoral candidate at The Australian National University and is part of the Australian Election Study project team. His research interests include voting, political attitudes and legislator behaviour.
Notes
1 The formal term for the same-sex marriage plebiscite was the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. The exercise was a national survey of opinion, but in effect it was a plebiscite since it permitted all enrolled voters to express an opinion on the issue. We use the term plebiscite here to describe the survey.
2 The other two plebiscites, both of which were defeated, were in 1916, on military conscription, and in 1917 on the reinforcement of the Australian Imperial Forces. The states and territories have held a variety of plebiscites on various issues. See: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2011/June/A_quick_guide_to_plebiscites_in_Australia.
3 Marriage is a devolved power in the United Kingdom. Legislation allowing for same-sex marriage passed through the Westminster parliament in 2013 and came into force in 2014, while legislation was passed by the Scottish Assembly in 2014. Same-sex marriages remain illegal in Northern Ireland (Evans and Tonge Citation2016).
4 In November 2011 Ireland also closed its embassy in the Vatican. This came after the Vatican withdrew its ambassador in July following critical comments by the Irish prime minister concerning the church’s obstruction of investigations into child abuse by priests.
5 The literature is large, but see, in particular, Scheepers, Te Grotenhuis, and Van Der Slik Citation2002; Baunach Citation2011; Carson, Ratcliff, and Dufresne Citation2017; Elkink et al. Citation2017.
6 See Engeli, Green-Pedersen, and Larsen Citation2012, Citation2013; Studlar, Cagossi, and Duval Citation2013; Knill, Preidel, and Nebel Citation2014; Hurka, Knill, and Rivière Citation2018; Studlar and Cagossi Citation2018.
7 A total of 38 Labor MPs, one Greens MP and three independent MPs voted for the bill, while 60 Liberal MPs, 10 Nationals MPs, 26 Labor MPs, and two independents voted against (Parliament of Australia Citation2012).
8 The deputy Labor leader, Tanya Plibersek, proposed a private member’s bill in December, as did a Liberal Democrat senator, David Leyonhjelm, in November 2014.
9 Since 1961, when the law was made nationally uniform, the power to legislate on marriage has been a Commonwealth responsibility.
10 Convening a joint party meeting – including conservative National members – to discuss the issue was itself controversial. Christopher Pyne, a prominent supporter of same-sex marriage, accused Abbott of ‘branch stacking’ in order to achieve his preferred outcome (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/samesex-marriage-tony-abbott-accused-of-party-branch-stacking/news-story/b85cb35f495a3ca27f5e07e5d2b63516).
11 A challenge to the government’s decision to hold the plebiscite without parliamentary approval was rejected by the High Court on 7 September 2017 (Yaxley Citation2017c).
12 When the issue was debated in parliament, only four MPs (Bob Katter (Independent), Russell Broadbent (Liberal), Keith Pitt (Nationals) and David Littleproud (Nationals) voted against the bill, while 10 MPs abstained (Barnaby Joyce [Nationals], Tony Abbott [Liberals], Andrew Hastie [Liberals], Michael Sukkar [Liberals], Kevin Andrews [Liberals], Scott Morrison [Liberals], George Christensen (LNP), Rick Wilson [Liberals], Stuart Robert [Liberals], Bert van Manen [Liberals]).
13 The plebiscite turnout was in fact very close to the likely turnout if federal elections moved from compulsory to voluntary voting. The AES has consistently estimated that around eight out of every 10 voters would still cast a ballot if voluntary voting was introduced. In the 2016 AES, 79.8% said they would ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ have voted if the election had been compulsory.’
14 In the 2016 AES, 52% of females were strongly in favour of same-sex marriage compared to 34% of males. Men were almost twice as likely to ‘strongly oppose’ same-sex marriage compared to women (21% compared to 12%)
16 An additional measure of the size of the electorate was included in early analyses, but was ultimately excluded in favour of the urbanisation measure.
17 The correlation between urbanisation is −0.179 (p < .000) but the effect disappears when social characteristics are added to the equation.
18 The calculation is 1.2% – 0.1% = 1.1%. 1.1 * 9.47 = 10.42.
19 The calculation is 82.8% – 50.0% = 32.8%. 32.8 * 0.77 = 25.26.
20 These state and territory arrangements are recognised as de facto partnerships under federal law.