The results of the referendum indicate a divide on educational and geographic lines, rather than on political lines.
Trawling the seat-by-seat results, reveals pockets of high-Yes voting in affluent, urban seats, many of them very safe Liberal seats. Those areas also correlate with higher educational levels on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.
A belt of Yes votes (some higher than Canberra) came in from the affluent, well-educated, solid Liberal seats of Sydney’s North Shore. Bradfield, Australia’s safest Liberal seat, voted Yes (56 per cent). Sydney (Ted Mack’s old seat) was on 68 per cent. John Howard’s seat of Bennelong voted 55 per cent Yes. Monarchist Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah was 55 per cent Yes. North Sydney was 62 per cent.
In Melbourne, the stockbroker belt west of the city voted Yes. Treasurer Peter Costello’s seat of Higgins had a 64 per cent Yes — higher than the ACT vote. Next door in Kooyong (Robert Menzies’ old seat) had a 65 per cent Yes.
In Tasmania, only the urban (Hobart) seat of Denison voted Yes at 53 per cent. The other four seats have rural elements and all voted No. It was not a political divide: all seats are held by Labor.
In South Australia, it was the same pattern. The urban, affluent Liberal seats (Sturt and Boothby) voted yes. The rural seats voted No. Labor low socio-economic seats voted No.
Very strong Labor seats were among the high Yes voters, presumably many blindly following the leader’s line. But the mid-range Labor seats in western Sydney voted No.
The high No vote came from the Bush, from seats where people are less affluent and less well-educated.
Maranoa in south-west Queensland voted 78 per cent No. Grey in the north of South Australia voted 68 per cent No.