Same-sex marriage 2010 upon promulgation by the Argentine President. Argentina thus became the first country in Latin America, the second in the Americas, and the tenth in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Australia became the second nation in Oceania to legalise same-sex marriage when the Australian Parliament passed a bill on 7 December 2017. The bill received royal assent on 8 December, and took effect on 9 December 2017. The law removed the ban on same-sex marriage which previously existed and followed a voluntary postal survey held from 12 September to 7 November 2017, which returned a 61.6% "Yes" vote for
Same-sex marriage in Malta by that time. In March 2016, Prime Minister of Malta and leader of the governing Labour Party Joseph Muscat stated at an International Women's Day event that he was personally in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in the country and that it was "time for a national debate" on the issue. The opposition Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil responded by stating that though the Government was attempting to use the issue of same-sex marriage to distract from a government scandal, he could foresee no difficulty in amending Malta's civil union legislation of 2014 to legalise same-sex marriage. The country's leading