A special NewsPoll published in The Australian has shown that support for marriage equality has grown over the last two weeks of the marriage postal survey campaign.

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If the predictions are accurate, the ‘No’ campaign faces an almost impossible task of needing to secure 97 per cent of the remaining ballots to be able to get a slim majority in the survey.

The latest figures show support for marriage equality had grown from 59 per cent to sixty two percent among people who have submitted their forms. While the ‘No’ campaign had made some advancements within the first few weeks of the campaign, they have lost ground dropping from 38 per cent to just 35 per cent.

Yesterday the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the nearly 12 millions Australians, an whopping 77 per cent of eligible participants, had returned their survey forms.

The Coalition for Marriage, the alliance of conservative lobby groups that forms the ‘No’ campaign against change is undeterred. This morning the group fired off an email to supporters urging them to keep door knocking and finding the remaining forms that have not been submitted.

With a likely ‘Yes’ result being delivered on November 15th, politicians have now begun arguing over what the legislation to allow for same sex marriage will look like.

Western Australian senator Dean Smith has put forward a private member’s bill developed from the findings of a senate inquiry into the issue, but opponents to marriage equality have argued that it does not contain enough protections for people who hold religious convictions.

Liberal MP Michael Sukkar, an opponent of marriage equality, is the latest MP to suggest that Senator Smith’s bill does not include enough exemptions.

“I have looked at Senator Smith’s bill and in my view it doesn’t contain the full suite of protections that many of our voters would expect, but, like all these things, these sorts of bills will be negotiated through the parliament, not even negotiated within a particular party but negotiated through the parliament and it’ll be the will of the parliament at the end of the day that shapes whatever bill,” Sukkar told Sky News on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared that he’s committed to passing the legislation before Christmas, but conservative MP’s, mostly from within his own party, have cast doubt on the proposed timeline.

Liberal National Party member Warren Entsch, a vocal supporter of marriage equality, will cut short his secondment to the United Nations, so he can be back in Canberra for the party room debate over the legislation.

OIP Staff