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 3 weeks 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 3 weeks 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 3 weeks 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 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Since the census is now identifiable I would never answer honestly anyway, and would encourage any member of a politically precarious minority to falisfy their census data if it did ask.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

census is now identifiable

Uh, no it isn't?

would encourage any member of a politically precarious minority to falisfy their census data

This is a terrible idea. If you were somewhere that you might actually face legal repercussions for being gay that would be reasonable...though those places are also not likely to ask for your sexuality on the census. But in Australia, not being honest is a fantastic way to see that your demographic gets ignored.

[–] No1@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

census is now identifiable

Uh, no it isn’t?

Oh, my sweet summer child...

I was pissed at the last one because it felt like an invasion of privacy lol.

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Idk what the current status is but last I checked they literally keep addresses and names in a Totally Secure (TM) government database and just like hash (or some other "one way" crypto encoding) them when distributing subsets to researchers. Have they actually changed that policy of direct retention?

[–] No1@aussie.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Forget name/address. The info in the other questions is what was pissing me off. That's enough to ID you.

It's like browser fingerprinting

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

true that.

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

you should read research on deanonymising data. The government lies, they literally introduced a bill in 2018 trying to bam cryptography because some researchers embarrassed them by proving you could re-identity census data.

Idk what planet you live on but the nsw government literally does eugenics on trans people. I had to get steralised to not have all my ID out me all the time and get the right title etc.

You are young, things can change fast the pendulum of tolerance swings back and forth, Whig history is demonstrably false.

here is a reasonable summary of concerns https://www.salingerprivacy.com.au/2016/03/17/census-no-longer-anonymous/

and here is recent research on deanoning datasets https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10933-3

edit: also defending the census because of overreliance on it is stupid. We should not make important decisions on unverifiable data. If not being on the census means no funding then the funding model is broken, not the person who doesn't want to be recorded. Censuses have historically been used for extremely bad shit, Australia is a nation founded in exploitation and genocide. There are extremely good reasons why certain people might lie or hide.

[–] TheHolm@aussie.zone -4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Why it should be there? I guess at this time no one give a f%&k about someones sexual orientation in Australia. And I fail to see any reason to register it for healthcare/taxation or similar purpose. IMHO questions of nationality should go away too.

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 11 points 2 weeks ago

Data helps inform research and policy.

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

No-one really cares about the individuals, its moreso about the aggregate. I think it would be interesting from a public policy perspective to know how many LGBTQI+ people live in Australia, Capital Cities, "The Regions", areas of low/high socioeconomic standing. We could actually have informed debate about these issues. This is also a problem with nationality as well, I'm not bothered if my neighbour is a homosexual transgender from China, but if we find a majority of immigrants from a certain country or region are living in an area of low socioeconomic standing maybe that group are disadvantaged in some way. Maybe they need better language support or help finding a job. At the end of the day it's to give governments the opportunity to govern Australia in a way that is effective, or they can completely ignore it like the Liberals seem to.

[–] Baku@aussie.zone -1 points 2 weeks ago

Shh