Australia's High Court has ruled in favour of the federal government on Thursday afternoon, which means the same-sex marriage postal survey will go ahead.
Marriage equality advocates and independent MP Andrew Wilkie brought the case against the move.
They argued the government did not have the right to spend more than $120 million of Treasury funds on the ballot without passing an act through parliament.
The government will draw the money from a fund for “urgent and unforeseen” spending, but critics say the government itself created the urgency with its own deadline for the vote.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is preparing to mail out the first ballot papers from Tuesday next week.
What happens now?
The ballots will be mailed out on September 12 as planned.
Enrolled voters will have until November 7 to post them back. (Those travelling overseas or living in remote Indigenous communities can vote online or by phone.)
The result will be released on November 15.
If it’s a “yes” vote, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised to allow a private member's bill to be introduced to the parliament in the final sitting fortnight of 2017 to change the definition of marriage.
That’s the last week of November and the first week in December, meaning same-sex marriage could be legal in Australia by Christmas.
What if the court ruled against the survey?
The ABS had already spent $14.1 million on the survey, a Senate committee was told on Thursday morning before the decision.
That’s money spent on advertising, operating an information phone line, printing ballot papers and securing IT systems.
If the court had ruled against the survey, the ballot papers would have been thrown out.
