CANBERRA, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Australians in some of the nation's most conservative electorates have thrown their support behind the same same-sex marriage movement, the results of a poll showed on Monday.
ReachTel polled Australians living in 12 conservative seats, including Treasurer Scott Morrison's seat of Cook, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's seat of New England and Trade Minister Steve Ciobo's electorate of Moncrieff, finding that a majority of voters in all 12 of the electorates polled supported same-sex marriage.
A majority of voters also said it was "very important" that the issue will be resolved in Parliament in 2017.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is against legalizing same-sex marriage in Australia, but 50.5 percent of voters in his seat are for allowing same-sex couples to marry. On the other hand, 39 percent opposed.
More than 56 percent of people in Treasurer Scott Morrison's seat would like to see same-sex couples afforded the same rights as other Australians, while 61.2 percent of those in the safe Liberal seat of Moncrieff in Queensland said they support same-sex marriage. Crucially, that seat's representative, Trade Minister Steve Ciobo, is also in favor of marriage equality.
The poll was commissioned by Australians for Equality and asked the opinion of 700 people in each electorate. The movement's director, Tiernan Brady said the results reflected "what we are seeing in town hall meetings all around Australia."
"This won't go away, this doesn't need to be a political football, a clear majority of voters in every party want this," Brady told Fairfax Media on Monday.
There is currently a push within government to allow a free vote on the issue before the federal budget is handed down in May, however the prime minister has said a plebiscite, or non-binding public vote, would still be going ahead later in the year.
