Postal vote is deeply contentious, with 49% of the voters polled disapproving of it and 39% approving

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A majority of Australians favour changing the law to allow same-sex couples to marry and over 80% of respondents also plan to vote in the looming postal survey, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

The latest weekly survey of 1,817 voters found that 57% of the sample favours a change to the law to allow marriage equality, with 32% against and 11% saying they don’t know.

People most supportive of the change are Labor voters (71%), Greens voters (69%), women (65%) and voters aged between 18-34 (65%).

Asked about the likelihood of voting in the non-compulsory postal ballot, 63% said they would definitely vote, 18% said they would probably vote, 4% said they would probably not vote and 6% said they would definitely not vote – with 9% unsure.

Yes voters are more likely to participate than no voters. Seventy-four per cent of those in favour of same-sex marriage will definitely vote compared with 58% of those opposed.

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Close to 90% of respondents (88%) said they were enrolled to vote at their current address, while 7% said they weren’t and 5% were unsure. Supporters of same-sex marriage are a bit more likely to be enrolled than those who are opposed (92% compared with 86%).

The ballot itself remains deeply contentious, with 49% of the sample disapproving of it and 39% approving. The postal ballot has become more unpopular since marriage equality advocates confirmed they would challenge it in the high court.

The new weekly poll continues to show that Labor would comfortably win any federal election held today.

This week, Labor leads the Turnbull government 53% to 47% on the two-party preferred measure. Last week Labor led the government 54% to 46%.

While there are weekly movements inside the poll’s margin of error, the trend is clearly unfavourable for the Turnbull government.

The past two weeks has been extremely challenging for the Coalition, with an internal debate on same-sex marriage, followed by the citizenship furore, which has seen the entire Nationals leadership refer themselves to the high court to clarify whether they are eligible to remain in the parliament.

The Greens are steady this week on 9%, the Nick Xenophon Team is on 3%, which is up one point from last week, despite the fact Xenophon himself has been snagged in the citizenship debacle, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is steady on 8%.

With the tensions between the United States and North Korea dominating the news, voters were also asked a number of security questions, including whether or not Australia should follow the US into any conflict with North Korea.

The prime minister told 3AW last week that Australia and the US were joined at the hip on defence matters and “if there is an attack on the US, the Anzus treaty would be invoked” and Australia would come to the aid of the United States.

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Voters were not nearly as enthusiastic. Asked whether Australia should commit military support to the US, 33% said yes, 38% said no and 26% were undecided.

A decisive majority, 61%, said any decision for Australians to go to war should be debated and voted on by the parliament – while 22% said that decision should be made by the prime minister and 17% said they didn’t know.

Asked to nominate the issues currently threatening global security and peace, voters ranked terrorism a clear first, followed by North Korean aggression, climate change, US aggression, Chinese aggression and Russian aggression.

On Monday, North Korea warned Australia it had committed a “suicidal act” by committing its troops to help the US in any conflict over Pyongyang’s nuclear program and by joining military exercises with US and South Korean forces.

Turnbull hit back, declaring: “North Korea has shown it has no regard for the welfare of its own population, no regard for the security and good relations with its neighbours and no regard for international law.”