The federal government has backflipped on its decision to exclude broader questions about gender and sexuality from the 2026 census.
On ABC Radio Melbourne on Friday morning, Mr Albanese described it as a ‘commonsense position’ to put a question – contradicting the government’s earlier position not to include such questions in the next census.
‘We’ve been talking with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and they are going to test for a new question, one on sexuality,’ he said.
‘Yes, there will [be], as long as the testing goes okay, and a question can be developed in a way that is sensitive, and that gets the information that is required,’ he said.
The move comes amid a wave of fury over the earlier decision to not include a previously promised question in the upcoming census.
Labor MP Josh Burns spoke out against the government’s decision on Thursday.
He said census data was meant to inform policy for all Australians.
‘It is not too much to ask for people to be counted,’ Mr Burns said in asking the government he is part of to reconsider.
The federal government has backflipped on its decision to exclude broader questions about gender and sexuality from the 2026 census, the Prime Minister has said
Fellow Melbourne Labor MP Peter Khalil joined Mr Burns in urging the government to include the questions. Other government MPS also spoke privately about their disappointment over the decision.
Hours before the Prime Minister’s announcement, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody lashed out at Jim Chalmers for defending the federal government’s decision not to include questions about gender and sexuality in the 2026 Census.
The Treasurer said on Thursday that the government was trying to avoid ‘nastiness and weaponisation’. He was backed up by deputy PM Richard Marles.
But Ms Cody said Mr Chalmers’ justification was ‘patronising’ and exclusivist.
‘The national census is about collecting data of all Australians,’ she told the ABC on Friday morning.
‘It informs the Australian Government when it is making its policy about where to build housing, what schools are needed, what programs should be funded in an area.
‘It needs to be a comprehensive, inclusive document and that is what including LGBTQIA+ communities is about, making sure it is an inclusive document rather than excluding a large section of community.’
Ms Cody brushed off the Treasurer’s concerns about weaponisation, saying ‘possible harm’ was not a ‘sufficient excuse’ and that the decision to exclude the questions was actually ‘harmful’.
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody said the federal government’s decision not to include questions on gender and sexuality in the 2026 census could ‘amount to unlawful discrimination’. Picture: Supplied
‘The LGBTQIA+ communities are calling to be included,’ she said.
‘It really is a patronising to then say because of the possible harm to those communities, therefore we won’t include them at all.’
The commissioner warned it could ‘amount to unlawful discrimination to exclude one whole section of the community from a really important document’.
Ms Cody earlier this week wrote to Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh calling on the government to amend its census questions.
She said she had not received a response.
More to come.
