The Albanese government’s decision to drop questions regarding gender and sexual identity from the 2026 Census, citing social cohesion, has created a political dilemma.

The decision has resulted in criticism from within the party and LGBTQI+ advocates accusing Labor of “repeating the mistakes of the former Morrison government”.

What happened?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics apologised in 2023 to the LGBTQI+ community after Equality Australia made a complaint because the 2021 Census did not include questions to capture data on gender and sexual identity.

The census was expected to include the questions, but it was announced on Wednesday that they would not be included.

Since then, ministers have argued that the decision to not include the question was made to avoid “nastiness” and “divisive debates”.

“We are doing that because we do not want to open up divisive debates in the community now,” Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday.

“We want to avoid the nastiness and weaponisation of these issues.” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Thursday.

Labor has been trying to paint Peter Dutton as a decisive figure in Australian politics, with Chalmers stating on Tuesday that the Opposition Leader was “the most divisive political leader that I have seen in my lifetime”.

“This is a deliberate choice by him, it’s not some accident,” he said.

“He divides deliberately, almost pathologically, and that sort of division in our leadership, in our society, right now is worse than disappointing: It’s dangerous.”

Dutton swatted down the accusation as a distraction and the government is now under fire from equality organisations following the decision.

The response:

Josh Burns, the Labor MP for Macnamara, broke with the party room on Thursday afternoon, becoming the first member of the Albanese government to do so.

He said that he felt a responsibility to stand up for LGBTIQA+ members of his electorate.

“I’ve made it clear that the way we govern needs to be inclusive and the census is an important tool to gather data and feed that into government systems and services,” he told The Guardian.

“For that to work the best it can, we need as few blind spots as possible, which is why I am asking the government to reconsider this decision.”

Anna Brown, CEO of Equality Australia, said that LGBTQI+ communities are wearing “the fallout of divisive community debates’”.

“The notion that acknowledging the existence of LGBTIQ+ Australians in the census would be a threat to social cohesion is, frankly, absurd,” she said.

“It is insulting to all Australians to think that they would be in some way angered or divided by such a basic acknowledgement of fact.”

She said that the government is “repeating the mistakes of the Morrison government”.

“By blocking these vital census questions, the government is effectively denying the right of LGBTIQ+ people to be counted,” Brown said.

“Governments cannot plan for services and make decisions about our futures when there is no accurate data on where we live, what our jobs are, our health issues, where we go to school and what our families look like.”

Political fallout

The decision also resulted in derision and criticism from the crossbench, with independent members leading the charge.

The letter was signed by nine independent MPs and one senator, while the Greens and state Labor members have also criticised the decision.

NSW state MP Alex Greenwich, a prominent gay politician and leader of the 2017 marriage equality campaign, said Albanese and his government “can expect LGBTQ people and our families won’t participate in the process” if the decision isn’t reversed, according to Nine Newspapers.

Harriet Shing, the first openly lesbian member of the Victorian Parliament and the state’s minister for equality, also sent a letter highlighting commitments from the government to include the questions in future censuses.