Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The first point I would make is that in any exercise involving the electoral roll there is a deadline after which no further updates can be made to the roll. The second point I would make is that if Senator Rice is now arguing that it would have been preferable to conduct a full, compulsory, personal attendance plebiscite, the government would agree with that. But given the Greens and others decided not to support the government's preferred way of giving all Australians a say on whether the definition of marriage should be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry, the government did as we flagged we would do, and we went with the next best way. The next best way is a marriage law survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The details of that have been well and truly released by now.

The senator is quite correct that the deadline for enrolments—the deadline for all eligible Australians to ensure their details are up to date or that they have newly and freshly enrolled—is 6 pm on 24 August. I would encourage all Australians who are eligible to participate to ensure that they are validly enrolled and to ensure their details are up to date by 6 pm on 24 August because, of course, we want every eligible Australian to have the opportunity to have their say. At the end of this process, this will help facilitate the Australian community moving on from an issue that has been around for a long time.