Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says sexuality and gender census questions ‘weren’t appropriate’

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that the 2026 Australian census questions on sexuality and gender “weren’t appropriate”.

The prime minister said that the federal government informed the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to cancel new census questions on sexuality, gender and diverse sex characteristics because they “weren’t appropriate.”

Last week, the federal government announced that Australia’s 2026 Census wouldn’t ask people about gender, sexual orientation, or diverse sex characteristics. Instead, the upcoming questions would fail to highlight topics important to the LGBTQ+ community, which the 2021 Census was also criticised for. 

The move incited outrage from the LGBTQ+ community and allies over the government’s initial decision to avoid “divisive debates”, and the prime minister eventually made a U-turn on the choice. 

However, the upcoming census will only include one question which is inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community, on sexuality. 

On 1 September, the prime minister refused to commit to reinstating all the draft questions but added that the government would work through issues with the ABS and the LGBTQ+ community. 

He said the previous census already included an “identity-type question”, but that “there should be something included about sexual orientation as well”.

Albanese said: “Quite clearly, what there should be is common-sense questions asked that are quite easily understood.

“The ABS was going to go out and test some questions on Monday…That’s why we put a pause on that so that we could consider appropriate questions that were easily understood by people when they get the census,” he continued.

“My government values every Australian, regardless of who they are, regardless of their sexuality, their race, their faith, their gender: we value every single Australian.”

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said to Sky News that the government was presented with questions “that were very complex in the census”, and suggested that the nation may not have been able to “understand and answer” the draft questions.

‘The census won’t include all Australians’

Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown welcomed the inclusion of the question, but added that “the national snapshot of our nation must include all of us, not just some of us”.

Brown went on to say: “We’re happy the government has decided to include a sexual orientation question in the census, but until questions on gender identity and intersex people are included, the census won’t include all Australians.”