Labor MP Josh Burns says he has lobbied his government to include the LGBTQIA+ community in the census, after Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it had been excluded to avoid encouraging "nastiness".

The decision to back away from plans to count sexuality and gender-diverse Australians by adding questions about sexuality and gender identity was first revealed on Sunday.

The treasurer, speaking to ABC RN on Thursday, said that the government's goal had been to "try and avoid some of the nastiness that sometimes accompanies that in the lead-up to the census".

"My fear, and one of the things that's guided us here ... is we've seen the way these issues can be weaponised against members of our community and we don't want to see that happen," he said.

But Mr Burns, whose electorate of Macnamara in Melbourne's inner south includes a large LGBTQIA+ community, told the ABC's Afternoon Briefing the census was "an important exercise [in] telling people that you count and that you matter … I think that one of the things that I'm hearing from my community is that they want to be counted."

Mr Burns said he had had "really honest" conversations with Labor colleagues and said he had received "positive responses".

"The census is not until 2026. There's still plenty of time to get this right."

His Labor colleague Alicia Payne, who represents Canberra, said her community was "incredibly concerned and disappointed" about the decision.

"A lot of countries, comparable countries to Australia, include these types of questions. As a former data analyst, there is also the argument that it's really important to have the best information we can in our biggest survey of everyone, the census," Ms Payne said.

Ms Payne said she hoped the government would look at the issue before the census came due.

It comes as the sex discrimination commissioner also urged the government to reconsider its decision in a letter to Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, stating that it carried serious implications for the wellbeing of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The 2026 census won't count LGBTQIA+ people, but why?

 

Photo shows Closeup of two people holding hands wearing jeans and walking

Mr Chalmers did not answer questions about whether the government would consider reversing the decision given the feedback from the community, but noted that the census is still two years away. 

"I'm not here to flag that, I'm here to explain how we got here and why," he said.

"We want to avoid the nastiness and weaponisation of these issues."

His comments followed those by Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who told reporters on Wednesday that the plan was capped to avoid a "divisive debate".

"The last thing we want to do is inflict that debate on a sector of our community right now," Mr Marles said. 

The comments echo the reasons Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave for shelving the contentious religious discrimination reform earlier this month.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton also waded into the debate on Thursday, stating that he felt the current census questions were satisfactory. 

"If you've got the woke agenda, which I think is at odds with the majority of Australians, then the prime minister should argue that case, but I think we're pretty happy with the settings we've got in place at the moment," he said.

Advocacy groups outraged 

The decision not to proceed with the new questions has angered LGBTQIA+ advocates who say they have a right to have their identities included in the national survey. 

"What the government is saying to us is that we are not worth having the hard conversations for, and they are dumping us in the too hard basket," Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown said on Thursday.

In response to the government's concerns about the potential for divisive debate, she added: "The notion that acknowledging the existence of LGBTIQ+ Australians in the census would be a threat to social cohesion is, frankly, absurd.

"And 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." 

Labor's 2023 policy platform — released before the last election — includes a commitment for the 2026 census to collect relevant data on LGBTQIA+ Australians. 

That commitment followed a push from Equality Australia and community member April Long, who submitted a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission that claimed the omission of LGBTQIA+ data collection from the census was discrimination.

Mr Burns said that commitment should be honoured.

"There is a reason why we made [it], I was really proud to campaign for a party that looked to include the LGBTQIA+ community, not like [Scott] Morrison with his really broken laws that were going to exclude people and allow for discrimination," he said.

"The census is a really important tool to be able to gather data ... that feeds into the delivery of government services to hopefully get better health outcomes."

The chief executive of LGBTIQ+ Health Australia, Nicky Bath, said without population data for gender and sexuality-diverse people they're "kind of working with blindfolds on". 

If the questions are not included in the next census as planned, she said, it will mean this continues until at least 2032, when the next set of data will be available. 

"These simple questions will actually enable us to be able to target services and target responses in a way we're just not able to at the moment," she said.

Calls for decision to be reversed

Sex discrimination commissioner Anna Cody echoed Ms Bath's concerns, stating that collecting data about LGBTQIA+ people was a "matter of practical, effective policy".

"The aim of the census is to capture a snapshot of Australia, and the data it generates is vital for ensuring services and policy reflect the needs of our country's diverse populations," she said. 

"While we must seek to minimise harm, the answer cannot be to do nothing."

A group of crossbench MPs have also expressed their dismay in an open letter to the government that urged it to reconsider.

The letter was spearheaded by independent Allegra Spender and signed by her fellow teals, as well as Helen Haines, David Pocock, Andrew Gee and Andrew Wilkie.

"Excluding LGBTIQA+ people and ignoring the evidence that demonstrates the need for this data will impact negatively on people's lives for many years to come," it read.

Mr Burns said the possibility of weaponisation should not deter the government.

"Obviously we don't want to see people being used as a political football, and there are always going to be bad faith actors who are trying to use these issues to divide people ... But I also think that in government we can show strength and we can show courage," he said.

"We can include people in the way in which we govern this country and that is what the Labor Party does when we are at our best."