Australia may never know the human toll the same-sex marriage postal survey exacted on its citizens, an emotional Magda Szubanski believes.
The actress and prominent Yes campaign advocate fiercely opposed the decision to conduct a postal survey, citing the adverse effects it had on gay and lesbian people.
Speaking while the Senate was in the final stages of debate to legalise same-sex marriage, she said she was relieved nearly two-thirds of Australians had voted 'yes'.
"The LGBTQI community were used as unwilling human guinea pigs in a political experiment," she told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
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"We may never know the exact human cost of this experiment. The truth is some of us did not survive this process."
It was known calls to LGBTQI help lines rose 300 per cent during the debate over recent months.
Asked whether the ends justified the means, Szubanski could only wish a different path had been taken.
"Knowing that 62 per cent of people wanted this is an amazing feeling but would I trade that for the suffering? I don't know. Who can make that call?", she said.
"This was a happy outcome but if a vote is ever put to the people like this again, I plead with you - do it better than this was done."
Szubanski called on politicians to quickly legalise marriage equality and not betray the will of the people.
"In purely political terms it was a landslide and if 'yes' was a political party, we would now have a staggering majority of 100 seats," she said.
Magda Szubanski is seen at a marriage equality rally in South Source: Magda Szubanski is seen at a marriage equality rally in South
"We have done our job. Now they must do theirs."
Her speech came while the same-sex marriage bill was being debated in the Senate, passing 43 votes to 12.
The legislation heads to the lower house when it returns to Canberra on Monday.
