Neither the Yes or the No campaign had one simple explanation but they agreed there was something about the concentration of Sydney's migrant communities that makes it easier for religious and ethnic lobbies to wield influence there than in Melbourne.

"We detected through the campaign that NSW, while it was voting, Yes was going to have a lower result. We tried to reach out to multicultural groups there but they were a tougher nut to crack," says Tim Gartrell, leader of The Equality Campaign.

The seats in south-west and north-west Sydney where No won by big margins are characterised by large concentrations of single ethnic groups in one place.

"In localities where there are strong communities built around Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, Eastern Catholicism, African Christianities, Asian Christianities (ranging from Catholic to Evangelical), and even in other areas with pockets of Orthodox Judaism, there were singular funnels of information presented in cultural and moral terms," Andrew Jakubowicz, UTS professor of Sociology wrote in The Conversation.

Les Hewitt

Lyle Shelton, leader of the No campaign's Marriage Coalition said he received very active support in Sydney from groups like the Maronites and Greek Orthodox. "We had more door knockers and volunteers."

He says the Catholic and Anglican archbishops of Sydney were both personally more outspoken in the No campaign than in Melbourne.

Equally, NSW has the political infrastructure of Fred Nile's Christian Democrat party in state parliament, which has no equivalent in Victoria.


One No campaigner suggested that a key difference was that in Victoria the "Safe Schools" program, which tries to prevent bullying of LGBTIQ children, has been compulsory in most schools for some time.

Sydney seats that voted NO.

The No campaigner said one of the key messages that resonated with No voters were the implications for the education of children if same-sex marriage became legal but the slogan worked much better in NSW than Victoria.

Another difference is that Melbourne arguably has a stronger tradition of progressive politics and crucially a much higher level of non-belief.

In Victoria 32 percent of people identified as having no religion in the 2016 census compared to 25.1 percent in NSW.

Correction: Corrects title of Tim Gartrell to leader of The Equality Campaign.