Push for people to have a say

SAM Watson is too young to vote in the $122 million same sex marriage postal survey but that has not stopped him campaigning on the issue.

The 16-year-old has spent countless hours encouraging young people to enrol before the electoral roll closes at midnight tomorrow night.

“Unfortunately I can’t vote so that has made me even more determined to help everyone who can have a say, to have a say,” he said.

He and fellow campaigners Sarah Livingston and Jackie Batchelor have set up stalls at the University of Tasmania and used social media to contact people.

Australian Electoral Commission spokesman Evan Elkin-Smyth said that since the survey was announced the AEC had enrolled 37,000 new voters and had processed 434,000 address updates.

Newspoll figures released yesterday show that 63 per cent believed people of the same sex should be able to marry, with 30 per cent against and 7 per cent undecided.

Long-time marriage equality campaigner Rodney Croome encouraged all young Tasmanians to register to vote and update their details in the next 24 hours.

“But I still hope that the High Court will stop the postal vote because young LGBTI people and the children of same sex couples should not have to endure the hateful material we are already seeing distributed interstate,” he said.

Denison MP Andrew Wilkie said he was still committed to the High Court challenge to the survey.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz that if a yes vote was returned he wanted Parliament to legislate protections for religious organisations and traditional marriage supporters.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was offended by extreme anti same-sex posters being distributed by Neo-Nazis.

Mr Turnbull, who again declared his public support for the yes vote in the postal survey, has urged people to rally around their family and friends in same-sex relationships.

“Stand up for them, put your arms around them,” Mr Turnbull told Sydney radio.

Neo-Nazis have put up posters across cities depicting a child cowering below two people brandishing rainbow belts, citing widely discredited research linking same-sex relationships to higher levels of abuse.

“Don’t be distracted by a handful of extreme and unpleasant posters or flyers,” he said.

“Focus on the substance of the debate and if you give the people who are saying vote no ... respect for their conservative view of marriage then they will give respect to your view.”