Peter Dutton has said he is “fine” with gender and sexuality questions being in the census despite earlier attacking Labor for having a “woke agenda”.
The opposition leader said the government’s partial backflip on the questions was “weak leadership” and demonstrated a loss of control over the national agenda. Asked specifically about counting “LGBT Australians” in the census, Dutton said he was “fine with that, if the prime minister’s got a proposal”.
“It requires legislation. He’s had no discussion with us,” Dutton said.
“The prime minister has a job to lead, and at the moment, as Australians can see, we’ve got a weak prime minister who doesn’t know what he believes in.”
On Thursday Dutton had advocated for maintaining “the set of questions we’ve got at the moment” which “stood us well as a country”.
“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,” Dutton said.
Late on Friday, prominent LGBTQI+ campaigner and Labor senator Louise Pratt welcomed the prime minister’s rethink on the census.
“As LGBTIQ+ Australians, we want to know we count,” Pratt said in a statement.
“I thank my colleagues that have stood up and responded to the concerns of the community and the people they represent.”
Pratt said census questions had contained wording that made it hard for some people to answer accurately or forced them to lie.
“The 2021 census was frankly difficult to complete truthfully for LGBTIQ+ Australians, as it didn’t provide options which accurately represent who we are… Better data equals better policy outcomes. It is in everyone’s interest that we collect census data which represents all Australians.”
Senior Albanese government frontbenchers had originally defended the scrapping of the proposed questions as avoiding a “divisive” debate in the community. They said the government had “good intentions”, to head off any potential for a “culture war” when the proposed question changes hit the Senate.
Concerns were raised over what conservative culture warriors would have done with the questions and particularly the potential impact on trans children particularly. Labor figures said there was also anxiety the Greens may have seen an opportunity to push the government “to go further”.
Guardian Australia has confirmed with Greens insiders that there was no plan to go beyond the questions initially proposedas “we wouldn’t risk any harm to trans or queer youth”. There was no consultation over the proposal, they said.
Albanese backflipped on the government’s decision to scrap questions in the 2026 census in an interview on Friday. The sudden switch came less than a week after the assistant minister for treasury, Andrew Leigh, confirmed the 2026 census would remain unchanged from what was put forward in 2021.
Labor backbenchers had threatened a revolt over the issue on Thursday.
But the government has made no comment on reinstating the other proposed questions around gender identity and variations of sex characteristics, which were included in the proposed new questions finalised in December.
The Greens say they will push the matter with a vote in the parliament unless Labor commits to reinstating the proposed questions.
While the Greens cannot alter the questions, it can force the government to record its stance in a vote through a motion, suspension of standing orders or a matter of public importance debate.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has also called on the government to reinstate the proposed questions in full.
The CPSU queer network co-convener Maddy Northam said excluding the LGBTQ+ community from the census had been a mistake. It was “now crucial” the government follows through by expanding the scope of the questions”, Northam said.
“It is essential to survey and get a snapshot of the entire LGBTIQ+ community in the census because this data is vital for shaping effective and equitable public policy and services,” she said.
“The ABS apologised in 2021 for excluding questions on gender identity and sexuality and acknowledged the hurt and distress it caused.”
The chief executive of Equality Australia, Anna Brown, said the government “shouldn’t pick and choose those of us who are worthy of being counted”.
“Trans and gender diverse people and those with innate variations of sex characteristics deserve to be recognised as much as anyone else,” she said.
LGBTIQ+ Health Australia has invited all federal MPs to a variety of briefings next week to discuss implications for the queer community.
The director of the Trans Justice Project, Jackie Turner, said excluding trans people from the census implied “our communities, our families and our friends don’t count”.
“The trans community needs this data to tell us just how big our community is, where we are living, and to determine what our health and service needs actually are,” Turner said.
Intersex advocate Tony Briffa said the lack of inclusion would affect the delivery of vital health and community services, given there was no data on how many Australians were born with biological variations of sex characteristics.
