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[Reudh]

Regarding minority governments, as a general rule to retain power the minority government must find existent seats that agree with them to be able to form government. This happens if they're very close to the post but lack the 76 required for majority; the Gillard government in 2010 was a minority government; it required the support of three independent MPs to guarantee supply and confidence; Oakeshott, Windsor and select other crossbenchers.

Minority governments as a general rule are less stable than majority governments; because parliamentary members have the numbers to vote against the government, or even call a vote of no confidence and dissolve the government. Turnbull's ministry is sitting at 74, so it must find at least two confidence and supplying crossbenchers to support it; with the rise of PHON and the demise of Katter and PUP, I doubt it'll happen.

We might be seeing an early election, but I don't think that's likely.

[Edmus]

I've heard the soonest we can go to another election is next August.

[smjjames]

And there's another one, Independent 'party' this time, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41982709 I decided to look at the Australia section of BBC world news and that was there.

Maybe the entire Parliament, PM Turnbull included, should take a look at their own ancestry and citizenship? And possibly those of past members. Just to, you know, see how common it is. It's starting to morph into a serious constitutional crisis for Australia.

[Sheb]

So, uh, Australia is gay now.

[Reelya]

Gaystralia
Ausgaylia
Austragaylia
Australigay

This is the big debate now. However remember that the plebiscite is non-binding here. And there's a new "marriage" bill up which would allow the marriages but also add in a bunch of religious-exemptions to the anti-discrimination laws which are so general that you could in fact arbitrarily discriminate anyone for anything.

e.g. my religion is against moustaches. No person with facial hair is allowed in my bar. The right-wing marriage bill would basically make that kind of shit perfectly legal. So they're trying to double-dare here by holding the anti-discrimination laws to ransom to get gay marriages through parliament.

[Reudh]

Gaystralia
Ausgaylia
Austragaylia
Australigay

This is the big debate now. However remember that the plebiscite is non-binding here. And there's a new "marriage" bill up which would allow the marriages but also add in a bunch of religious-exemptions to the anti-discrimination laws which are so general that you could in fact arbitrarily discriminate anyone for anything.

e.g. my religion is against moustaches. No person with facial hair is allowed in my bar. The right-wing marriage bill would basically make that kind of shit perfectly legal. So they're trying to double-dare here by holding the anti-discrimination laws to ransom to get gay marriages through parliament.

There are two proposed bills, one being horrific like you said, and another being rather more reasonable. The rather-more-reasonable one is also suggested by a Liberal, and appears to have support from Labor and the Greens too.

[Jimmy]

my religion is against moustaches. No person with facial hair is allowed in my bar.

I mustache you to leave, sir.

Any chance of tacking a rider onto the bill that allows discrimination against religious bigots in positions of political power? Perhaps an exemption for the electoral commission from counting any votes for their election?

[Reudh]

Alright, I've got some interesting things to note about the results.

Australia as a whole voted mostly yes. 62% voted Yes and 38% no. This had a total voter turnout of 12 million or so; around half the country, or around 80% of adults eligible to vote. This is an incredibly high voter turnout considering that it was entirely voluntary. It is probably because we have a culture of voting; our elections are mandatory voting.

No single state voted no. NSW had the highest overall No vote, with 58% of New South Welshman voting yes, and 42% voting no. This is largely due to the densely populated western Sydney electorates voting mostly no.

The Australian Capital Territory, already well known by other Australians for its lax fireworks laws, voted very strongly yes, with 74% voting Yes and 26% voting no.
Fitting with NSW's stronger surge towards No, the most electorates that voted No were to be found in New South Wales.

Notable electorates:

The Division of Melbourne: the highest overall Yes vote. 82% voted yes, 18% voted no. Similar results were found in other inner city Victorian electorates like Melbourne Ports.
The Division of Warringah: Tony Abbott's old stomping ground. 75% voted yes, 25% voted no. Surprising results for a sturdy Liberal seat!

All top six No voters were NSW.
Division of Blaxland: Labor Heartland. Has been held by the Labor Party for over a century. Voted 26% yes, 74% no. This is a surprise. Perhaps the Blaxlanders didn't consider SSM a worthy thing to vote on, when Blaxland and surrounding electorates have been very poor and working class as long as they've existed.
Division of Watson: A southern Sydney seat. Voted 30:70. Also Labor, though it's a rather new seat, only having existed for just under 30 years.
Division of McMahon: Western Sydney. 35:65. Another Labor heartland. These are really surprising me, because even traditionalist Labor voters tend to be pretty progressive with social rights.
Division of Werriwa: Western Sydney. 36:64. Another heartland, held by Labor or variants for >100 years.
Division of Fowler: Mid western Sydney. 36:64. Not a heartland, but much like Watson.
Division of Parramatta: North-western Sydney. The only non-Labor safe seat to vote no considerably strongly. 38:62. Has flipped between Liberal and Labor for the better part of a hundred years.

The most anti-SSM electorate in the "culture capital" of Melbourne was the Division of Calwell.
Calwell is an interesting electorate. It voted 43:57. It's one of the most stable areas population-wise in Melbourne, and is also notable for being a Labor stronghold in the north-west of Melbourne.
Perhaps Calwell was so against it due to its high religious population: Calwell as a whole is around 35% devoutly Catholic, and 16.5% Muslim. This may well account for its comparatively strong No vote.


And then we get to the grotty division I'm a part of, the Division of Holt. Holt only barely scraped a yes, with 51:49. We're outer suburban, Labor-ish safe, was marginal for a while. It is likely because there seems to be a rather high population of fundies in Holt, if the Rise Up Party and Catch the Fire Ministries are anything to go by.

[Reelya]

Uhh, those western-sydney suburbs are all relatively recent in terms of having any significant population whatsoever. e.g. as recently as 1970, most of Fairfield was farmland.

To give you an idea, Bankstown is only 38% populated by Australian-born people, and Anglicans only make up 3% of the local population, whereas they are 40% of Australia on average.

http://bankstown.localstats.com.au/demographics/nsw/sydney/canterbury-bankstown/bankstown

The religious makeup of Bankstown is 26.2% Islam, 21.5% Catholic, 12.2% Buddhism, 10.0% Religious affiliation not stated, 8.7% No religion, 8.6% Eastern Orthodox, 2.9% Anglican, 1.3% Hinduism, 1.3% Uniting Church, 1.2% Baptist.

Yeah, no, these are not old working class areas, they are all part of the post-war suburb sprawl and immigration boom. White working class history is the inner-city.

[Reudh]

Well, I stand corrected.

[Reelya]

Bankstown is in Blaxland btw but I couldn't be sure it's representative, so I dug around and found demographic data from the census:

http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/CED105

Cutting a long story short, the percentage of people in the entire electorate who had both parents born in Australia is 12.8%

So it's probably very similar to what you said for Calwell.

[Edmus]

Even my electorate, New England, pulled a yes. Shame we have no representative to vote that for us. haha

[scriver]

New South England or New North England?

Also, I'm happy for you, Australia. Here's to the government adapting your wishes sooner rather than later an it doesn't become a "we'll get to it in time" thing for them.

[Reudh]

It's in Trumble's best interest. If he passes it, then he appears to have actually done something at all while in prime ministership. It also makes people look away from the ongoing citizenship section 44 debacle.

[Edmus]

New South England or New North England?

The antipodean south New England in northern New South Wales, obviously.