CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab which recaps the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation, drawing on the work of FactLab and its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate October 7, 2022
Good morning,
This week, CheckMate tests Mark Latham's maths on the number of transgender people in Australia.
We also sort fact from fiction when it comes to the global use of nuclear power and explain why a Labor senator was found to be misleading when taking the credit for increases in welfare payments.
The problem with sex and gender data in the 2021 census
Posting to Facebook late last month, One Nation's Mark Latham posed a question: How many transgender people were there in Australia?
The former Labor leader then provided an answer.
"Today the ABS [Australian Bureau of Statistics] reported that the non-binary sex option was marked on the 2021 Census form by just 43,220 respondents or 0.17 per cent of the Australian population.
"Never have so few made so much noise … It's the ultimate in minority politics: to listen to the transgender activists and debate in Australia, you would think there are 17 million of them, not 0.17 per cent of the population!"
But while 43,200 people selected the non-binary sex option, the ABS warns against using the census figures to draw conclusions about the number of transgender, gender diverse and non-binary people in Australia.
An ABS article published on September 27, the same day as Mr Latham's Facebook post, offered an explanation.
For the first time, in 2021 all census respondents could select male, female or non-binary in response to the question about sex.
"However," the article noted, "this addition to the sex question did not yield meaningful data."
Moreover, it said the results "cannot be used as a measure of gender diversity, non-binary genders or trans populations", which are separate concepts to non-binary sex.
Sex, as the ABS defines it, is based on a person's "sex characteristics, such as their chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs".
"While typically based upon the sex characteristics observed and recorded at birth or infancy, a person's reported sex can change over the course of their lifetime and may differ from their sex recorded at birth," the bureau explained.
Gender, on the other hand, "is about social and cultural differences in identity, expression and experience as a man, woman or non-binary person", according to the ABS.
The 2021 census did not ask any questions related to gender.
While the bureau has produced standards for questions relating to sex, gender, variations of sex characterstics and sexual orientation, such questions were not included in the census, the make-up of which is decided by the government of the day.
"The Government determined the 2021 Census should collect data on sex but not information on gender, variations of sex characteristics or sexual orientation," the ABS article stated.
According to the ABS, the results of the census showed that the concept of non-binary sex was "not consistently understood" and was "perceived in different ways by different people".
Those people who selected "non-binary" as a response to the question on sex were able to provide more information in a text box; one third chose to do so.
These written responses provided some insight into how respondents interpreted the sex question, with three in five referencing gender identities using terms such as "agender, demiboy, gender fluid, non-binary gender and trans woman".
"The analysis of textual responses indicates that, in the absence of separate questions relating to gender identity, sexual orientation and variations of sex characteristics, many respondents chose to use the non-binary sex category to record responses for these characteristics," the ABS noted.
"The range of information provided indicates that the question was not consistently answered. Given this, the ABS does not support the use of the non-binary sex category to estimate the prevalence of any specific group in the community."
Mr Latham's Facebook post, which assumes the number of transgender people in Australia can be approximated using the number of census respondents reporting their sex as non-binary, contradicts this ABS advice.
As RMIT ABC Fact Check reported in 2020, there is no official means of calculating the number of transgender people in Australia.
No, Australia is not alone on nuclear power
A claim by Indigenous leader Warren Mundine that Australia is the only country without nuclear power has been rated false by RMIT FactLab.
In a Facebook post published recently by the conservative lobby group Advance Australia, Mr Mundine was quoted as saying: "Every other country in the world is doing nuclear except us — we look like a bunch of idiots!"
The quote originates from a 2021 interview on Sydney radio station 2GB, in which the long-time nuclear power advocate argued it was "hypocritical" to export uranium abroad while banning its use at home.
But Australia is far from the only country to abstain from nuclear energy.
Our World in Data's nuclear tracker database, for example, shows it was one of at least 48 countries that did not use any nuclear power in 2021, alongside Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand.
And according to the World Nuclear Association, which tracks and promotes the industry, nuclear power plants currently operate in just 32 countries.
Meanwhile, FactLab noted, countries such as Germany and Switzerland have announced plans to phase out their existing plants.
Labor senator misleads on increases to welfare payments
As the cost of living skyrockets in Australia, the rates of a number of welfare payments were lifted on September 20 in order to keep pace with inflation.
But a suggestion from Labor senator Murray Watt that the boost was the "biggest cost of living increase" for select welfare recipients in 30 years — and that Labor could take the credit for this — was misleading.
That's according to RMIT ABC Fact Check, which this week found that the September increase to a number of welfare payments was made following a routine indexation designed to ensure payments keep pace with the cost of living.
By design, the fact checkers explained, these automatic regular increases maintained — but did not provide an increase in — recipients' purchasing power, and occurred regardless of which party was in government.
Notably, a number of ad-hoc increases to payments above the rate of inflation (and indexation factors) had been overseen by previous governments in the last 30 years, providing additional cost-of-living relief to welfare recipients.
This chart, based on Department of Social Services data, shows that unemployment benefits rose by almost 9 per cent after the Morrison government introduced a permanent $50 increase to fortnightly payments during the pandemic. This was well above the automatic 4 per cent rise recently heralded by Labor.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell
Got a fact that needs checking? Tweet us @ABCFactCheck or send us an email at factcheck@rmit.edu.au
