By Natassia Chrysanthos
Australians will be asked about their gender identity in the next census, after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the second time reversed his government’s position on including new LGBT questions in the national survey.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Sunday morning revealed the 2026 census would count transgender Australians for the first time, saying the government had listened to the LGBT community after a backlash followed Albanese’s original decision to scrap new census questions.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the change on Sunday.Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
The new “sexual orientation and gender” census topic will ask about both sexuality and gender identity, after equality advocates warned that excluding LGBT people from national data worsened policy outcomes for minority groups. The questions will be optional and only asked of people 16 and over.
However, there will be no new questions that count intersex Australians, who have innate sex characteristics that don’t fit medical and social norms for female or male bodies.
Chalmers said the Australian Bureau of Statistics would continue to refine the precise wording of the questions. “The message that we want to ensure that Australians hear from us today is that we understand the feedback that we got, we listened to that, we took it very seriously, we listened very genuinely,” he said.
The government announced two weeks ago, on August 25, that it had cancelled the bureau’s plans to trial new questions that would identify sexually diverse, transgender and intersex Australians.
Albanese wanted to avoid a culture war at a time Labor was pitching to voters on the cost of living, and senior ministers, including Chalmers, backed him in public by saying that questions about sexuality or gender in the next census would lead to a divisive debate.
But by the end of that week, an internal Labor revolt provoked six MPs to speak out against the decision. The call had also infuriated equality advocates, who already felt slighted by Albanese’s decision to abandon the religious discrimination reforms he promised.
Albanese reversed his stance and said there would be one new question on sexual orientation. However, he came under fire for splitting the community by refusing to count transgender Australians.
On Sunday, Chalmers said the government had again changed its position and would include questions on gender. “We have listened to the community,” he said.
“We worked very closely with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I wanted to say how professional and diligent and sensitive the chief statistician, David Gruen, has been as we worked through these issues. LGBTIQ+ Australians matter. They have been heard and they will count in the 2026 Census.”
However, there will be no new question on sex characteristics, which would have asked whether a person had been told they were born with “innate reproductive development, genetics or hormones that do not fit the medical norms for female or male bodies”.
Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh said that question was excluded because ABS testing showed it was too technically complex to collect high-quality data. “The government will continue to work with the intersex community about ways of gathering information in other ABS surveys,” he said.
Leigh said the changes aligned with ABS recommendations and reflected consultation with experts, including those from the LGBT community. “The government’s position follows further engagement with the community and additional discussions with the ABS,” he said.
“The government will make a legislative instrument to implement these changes, and will introduce this instrument before the end of the year.”
The head of Equality Australia, Anna Brown, said she hoped the changes were passed smoothly by parliament.
“This is the sensible, pragmatic and moral course of action, that will ensure vital data about some of the most vulnerable populations in Australia is collected nationally for the first time,” she said. “It’s now time to let the ABS get on with doing its job.“
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has previously said he is “fine” with members of the LGBT community being counted, although he wanted to see full details. The Coalition was contacted for comment.
The Greens had planned to wedge Labor’s progressive MPs on the issue when parliament returned by bringing a vote that would 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.
Greens spokesman Stephen Bates welcomed the update but said the saga showed Labor was prepared to walk away from its promises to LGBT Australians.
“The pain and chaos of the past fortnight could have been easily avoided if the Prime Minister had not made a captain’s call to abandon an election promise and exclude us from the census,” he said.
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