Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hit back at suggestions he is limiting the scope of the census’ data collection on LGBT Australians to just one question, as he continues to deal with the fallout of the past week from members of his own party, the opposition, and advocates.
After an internal Labor revolt Albanese backflipped on Friday to allow gay, lesbian and bisexual people to be counted in the census.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: James Brickwood
However, the prime minister stood firm on the decision to exclude planned questions about trans and intersex Australians.
Speaking at a press conference in Rockhampton on Saturday, Albanese denied he was limiting the scope of data collection by just having the one question on gay, lesbian and bisexual people.
“No, there’s a range of other questions, including there’s already an identity question in the census. The ABS will work these things through, you’re talking about 2026 and it’s 2024,” he said.
“My government’s priority has been working through cost of living measures, that’s been our focus, and we’ll work with the ABS on those issues.”
A week ago, the government scrapped plans for new LGBT questions, and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Treasurer Jim Chalmers defended the decision as they argued it would have triggered a divisive culture war.
This prompted six Labor MPs, including Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney, to break ranks and tell Albanese to reverse the decision.
Albanese took to ABC radio on Friday morning to announce a change to the government’s original decision but did not commit to resume testing for other planned questions on gender and sex characteristics.
“They’re going to test for a new question, one question about sexuality, sexual preference,” he said on Friday.
The prime minister stood firm on Saturday.
“Nothing has changed. We are consistent about having a common-sense approach to these issues, we want to make sure that everyone is valued, regardless of their gender, their race, their faith, their sexual orientation, we value every Australian,” he said.
The Greens will seek to wedge Labor’s progressive MPs on the issue and accused Albanese of trying to “split the queer community down the middle”, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton seized on the disunity in the Labor ranks and said, “the wheels are falling off the government”.
As parliament is set to return later in September, the Greens will test the Labor MPs who called on Albanese to reverse the government’s decision by bringing a vote in both the lower and upper houses.
This will force them to either side with the government’s revised position to only count sexual orientation or to back the inclusion of trans people in the survey.
Advocacy groups including Equality Australia and Transcend argued the Albanese government was picking and choosing members of the LGBT community.
“Trans and gender-diverse people and those with innate variations of sex characteristics deserve to be recognised as much as anyone else,” Equality Australia’s Anna Brown said.
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