Cheers erupted as a bill to legalise same-sex marriage was passed in the Australian Senate 43 votes to 12 on Wednesday, November 29.

The bill would then be passed on to the House of Representatives, where an affirmative vote would make same-sex marriage law. The voting followed hours of debate about proposed amendments to the bill, put forward by Senator Dean Smith, but those changes were not successful, news.com.au reported.

On November 15, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced that Australians had voted in support of same-sex marriage in a postal survey. Credit: Parliament of Australia via Storyful