Next Census to Include Gender Identity Question After Week of Pressure

A row over questions on sexuality in the next Census has compelled the Australian Bureau of Statistics to include questions on gender identity or preference.
On Aug. 30, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the relevant questions were now being developed.
“They’re going to test for a new question, one question about sexuality, sexual preference,” he told ABC Radio.
“They’ll be testing, making sure as well that people will have the option of not answering it.”
Federal Labor Member for Macnamara Josh Burns, who only narrowly edged out the Greens at the 2022 election, broke away from his party on the issue.
Burns represents suburbs including St Kilda and Port Melbourne in inner-city Melbourne.
This position differed from Acting Labor Prime Minister Richard Marles, who told the media the government had decided not to add new questions to avoid division.
“We are doing that because we do not want to open up divisive debates in the community now,” Marles told journalists at a press conference.
Federal Labor Member for Wills Peter Khalil, who represents an area in Melbourne’s inner north, also called for questions regarding sexuality and gender identity to be included.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he genuinely understands people’s disappointment, but the government’s focus has been on other things, including the cost of living.
“My fear, and one of the things that’s guided us here and me here, if I’m frank, is that we’ve seen the way that these issues can be weaponised against members of our community, and we don’t want to see that happen.”
When asked if he would reverse the decision, Chalmers said, “I’m not here to flag that. I’m here to explain how we got here and why.”
Meanwhile, state Victorian Labor Minister for Equality Harriet Shing, an openly lesbian MP from Labor’s left faction, also called for federal Labor to reconsider.
“I think the set of questions that we’ve got at the moment, the long-term way in which we’ve collected this data, has stood us well as a country,” he said.
“If you’ve got the woke agenda, which I think is at odds with the vast majority of Australians, then the prime minister should argue that case, but I think we’re pretty happy with the settings that we’ve got in place at the moment.”
Yet the ABS had previously issued a statement on the lack of gender diversity questions.
“Teal” MP Allegra Spender, who represents Sydney’s eastern suburbs, called on the government to reverse what she called a “disgraceful” decision.
She was one of multiple cross-bench parliamentarians who wrote to the prime minister.
In this letter, the parliamentarians drew attention to the ABS statement in 2023, which they said led them to believe that LGBTs “would finally be recognised in the 2026 Census.”
Meanwhile, the Greens said Labor had betrayed LGBT peoples.