Now that the High Court has decided this undemocratic and underhanded postal vote will go ahead, the campaign for marriage equality will continue with full steam. Rallies in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne will go ahead as planned over the next few weeks.

The National Union of Students (NUS) LGBTI Department is calling on all students to come out and rally around the country on Wednesday September 13 as part of a national Student Day of Action. In Melbourne, there will be a central rally at the State Library of Victoria at 2pm supported by Equal Love Melbourne and featuring speakers from NUS, the National Tertiary Education Union and the Greens.

NUS LGBTI urges anyone who will have received their ballot papers by this date to bring them along: we’ll march to the Melbourne GPO and post our yes votes together.

“Let’s be clear: Malcolm Turnbull is the main person standing in the way of marriage equality,” says Chris di Pasquale, NUS National LGBTI Officer, “He forced this postal vote on us as a way of placating the far-right in his party who are propping up his leadership. But this has backfired on Turnbull spectacularly. His popularity is diminishing and the biggest movement for LGBTIQ+ rights has been unleashed.”

“Two thirds of the population consistently support marriage equality in opinion poll after opinion poll and that number goes up to 81 per cent when we’re dealing with young people between 18 and 24 years old.” Said Di Pasquale

“We are winning this campaign—Turnbull knows it, the homophobes in his party know it, the conservatives peddling the ‘no’ campaign know it. This is why they’ll do anything they can to delay the question.” Said Di Pasquale

“But after some of the biggest rallies for marriage equality this country has ever seen, including one of over 20,000 people in Melbourne on August 26, these right-wing cretins know they can never put the genie back in the bottle. They know that we won’t stop fighting until we win our basic civil rights.” Said Di Pasqaele

Melbourne rally details: Wednesday 13 September at 2pm, State Library of Victoria, CBD
Sophie Johnston National President | National Union of Students