Same sex marriage equality LGBTIQ
PHOTO: © Syda Productions / Shutterstock.com

It’s official – Australia votes YES to same-sex marriage!

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UPDATE @ 9.00am: Today will go down in the history books.

After a long few months, AUSTRALIA has overwhelmingly voted YES to legalising same-sex marriage.

The Bureau of Statistics made the announcement a short time ago, after sifting through nearly 13 million votes.

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Nearly 8 out of 10 eligible Australians (79.5%) had their say in the postal ballot, with every state and territory recording a majority YES result.

7,817,247 (61.6%) said they believed the law should be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry, while 4,873,987 (38.4%) responded no.

The state with the most amount of yes votes was the ACT at 74%, and the lowest was New South Wales with 57.8%.

Screengrab: https://marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au/results/

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says its now up to the Government to have same-sex marriage legalised by Christmas.

“Now it is up to us, here in the Parliament of Australia, to get on with it, to do to the job the Australian people have tasked us to do… to get this done, this year, before Christmas.”

WATCH:

Social media was lit up with a beautiful array of colour as soon as the results were read out.

EARLIER @ 7.00am: The wait is finally over.

At 9.00am AEST this morning, Australian’s will know the official result of the same-sex marriage postal survey.

Nearly 80 per cent of Australians took part in the voluntary vote, which asked whether or not the law should be changed to allow same sex couples to marry.

If various opinion polls posted online in the past few weeks are anything go by, same sex couples could be tying the knot by Christmas.

After spending five days in Asia, Prime Minister Turnbull has touched down in Canberra just in time for the highly anticipated survey announcement this morning.

If there is a YES vote, new legislation could be debated in Parliament as early as tomorrow.

GetUp marriage equality director Sally Rugg says this morning’s Bureau of Statistics announcement couldn’t come soon enough for the millions of Australians who posted Yes votes.

“A Yes result would be a massive win for people power – millions of us sent back a Yes vote not just for marriage equality but also for fairness and love,” she said.

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