In case our federal representatives fail to represent the strong support for marriage equality when they vote on the matter later this year, we know their state Coalition and Labor colleagues are ready to. 

ADELAIDE: South Australian Minister for Social Inclusion Ian Hunter has told ABC Radio he is so doubtful of equal marriage rights in Australia being reached this year that he is planning to marry his partner in Spain within the next 12 months.

The peak association representing the country’s civil celebrants has become the latest body to gives its official backing to marriage equality, while also calling for a conscience vote to be offered to all parties when the issue comes up for debate in Federal Parliament later this year.

Federal Finance Minister Penny Wong and her partner Sophie Allouache are getting used to life as new parents, after announcing overnight that Allouache gave birth to a baby girl in Adelaide on Sunday, just a week after Wong had led calls for the Labor Party to give its backing to marriage equality.

Marriage advocates and others have welcomed an apparent change of heart by new Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, after the country’s first female Attorney-General revealed in a newspaper interview today that she now supports marriage equality.

Marriage equality advocates are still hopeful that a conscience vote on the issue will be granted to Coalition MPs next year, despite Opposition Leader Tony Abbott yesterday declaring his strongest stance yet against the option following growing pressure over the past few weeks.

The Federal Government has today finally removed its ban on issuing Certificates of No Impediment to marriage (CNI) to same-sex couples wanting to marry overseas, two years after a Senate inquiry recommended the move and only a few months after Prime Minister Julia Gillard claimed that it would take an amendment to the Marriage Act for any change to occur.

Former Coalition leader Malcolm Turnbull has today intimated in a national radio interview that he would be inclined to support marriage equality should the Coalition be given a conscience vote on the issue when a private member’s bill is tabled in Federal Parliament next year.

HOBART: Tasmania’s Greens leader Nick McKim yesterday signalled that he will push for a state-based same-sex marriage framework by introducing already-tabled Bills into the Tasmanian Parliament next year, on the grounds that a conscience vote in Federal Parliament on the issue “is doomed to fail”.

The Federal Government will soon remove a barrier to Australian same-sex partners marrying overseas, with the Labor Party deciding over the weekend at its National Conference to allow Certificates of No Impediment to Marriage (CNI) to be issued to same-sex couples.

Coalition leader Tony Abbott has remained non-committal over whether to grant his MPs a conscience vote on the issue of marriage equality despite a new Galaxy poll showing that 76 per cent of Coalition voters would support such a move.

A conscience vote was the best outcome marriage equality advocates could've hoped for at Labor's National Conference, and it's certainly a historic and significant development. But the position the ALP now finds itself in as a result of trying to displease as few factions as possible is quite bizarre.

SYDNEY: On a sunny day where it was said “all the colours of the rainbow” had turned out, over 10,000 people from all walks of life took part in what was the nation’s largest ever rally in support of marriage equality.

Marriage equality advocates have reacted angrily to the Labor Party’s decision today to back a parliamentary conscience vote on the issue, with the likes of Australian Marriage Equality convener Alex Greenwich saying that the fight will continue.

A private member’s bill calling for marriage equality will be introduced in Federal Parliament in coming months, with Labor MP for Throsby, Stephen Jones, signalling that he will do so when parliament resumes next February following the ALP’s historic policy shift earlier today to support same-sex marriage rights.