The ABS organised an advisory committee to help it form new questions that would include the LGBTQI+ community in the 2026 census.

But on Monday, the bureau's head statistician, David Gruen, announced that the testing phase of the 2026 census, when the new questions were to be trialled, was scrapped.

"Given the government's announcement yesterday that topics will remain unchanged from 2021, I have made the decision that the upcoming test will not proceed," Dr Gruen said.

"The test would have included topics that the government has now decided will not be in the 2026 Census."

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday, "we don't want to open up a divisive debate in relation to this issue".

"We've seen how divisive debates have played out across our country, and the last thing we want to do is inflict that debate on a sector of our community right now," he said.

Labor's 2023 national platform states the party "believes that LGBTIQ+ Australians should be counted as part of the national census" and commits to the 2026 census gathering relevant data on LGBTQI people.

[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday, “we don’t want to open up a divisive debate in relation to this issue”.

'Instead we're just going to pretend you don't exist.'

👍👍👍👍

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 10 points 2 months ago

Translation: "We don't want a repeat of the First Nations Voice to Parliament culture war this close to an election. Our jobs are more important than delivering on election promises you may have voted us into government for."

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 7 points 2 months ago

When one group's argument is that they're not being heard/seen there's not really a neutral position. Something which Labor may discover

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In spite of my previous comment, I suppose it could be justified as a protection of the LGBTQI+ community, e.g. if it was found to be a very small contingent of the population, the Liberals and conservative media would have an absolute field day with it. Extremely divisive arguments about whether we should care about such a small contingent of the population. In saying that I'm fairly confident that there are more LGBTQI+ people in Australia than "Jews" who the Liberals have been protecting by calling any criticism of Israel "antisemitic".

Note: I have nothing against the Jews, only Israel and it's supporters. Also I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this argument, just thought I'd put it out there