Next Census to Include Gender Identity Question After Week of Pressure

A row over questions on gender identity in the next Census has compelled the Australian Bureau of Statistics to include questions on sexual preference.
The move comes after progressive leaders, bodies, and media outlets pushed the issue over the past week.
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.
Victorian members were vocal in their support.
Burns narrowly edged out the Greens at the 2022 election, and represents suburbs like St Kilda and Port Melbourne in inner-city Melbourne.
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.
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. The 2021 Census only included a question about sex, which the bureau said was distinct from a person’s gender.
“Teal” MP Allegra Spender, who represents Sydney’s eastern suburbs, earlier called the decision not to include the options for gender “disgraceful.”
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.