Just.Equal Australia says the Government’s poor handing of LGBTIQA+ census questions could have been avoided if it had an LGBTIQA+ Equality Minister and a dedicated LGBTIQA+ Human Rights Commissioner.
The group has welcomed news that the Government will include a question in the 2026 Census about gender identity alongside a question about sexual orientation but says the exclusion of people with variations of sex characteristics is not acceptable.
Just.Equal spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said the situation could have been avoided if Labor had followed through on an earlier pledge to have an equality minister.
“The Census mess could have been avoided if the Federal Labor Government had an LGBTIQA+ Equality Minister and an LGBTIQA+ Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission to advise it on LGBTIQA+ issues.”
“The fiasco over LGBTIQA+ Census questions shows why an LGBTIQA+ Equality Minister and an LGBTIQA+ Human Rights Commissioner are vitally important, not just for representing our community but for good decision-making by government.” Croome said on Sunday.
“Just.Equal again calls for the reintroduction of Federal Labor’s Equality Portfolio, scrapped in 2019, and the appointment of a dedicated LGBTIQA+ Human Rights Commissioner, which was an election promise until 2019.”
Just.Equal say when Anthony Albanese became Labor Leader in 2019 he oversaw the gutting of Federal Labor’s LGBTIQA+ policy platform which included dumping the Equality Portfolio and jettisoned Labor’s election commitment to appoint an LGBTIQA+ Commissioner to the AHRC.
The commitment to a Commissioner was announced by Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus in 2016, and described by Senator Penny Wong as “critical.”
Not long after he assumed the Labor leadership Albanese told OUTinPerth that he’d removed the position of Shadow Minister for Equality, because it was an issue that needed to be central to all leadership positions in any government he would lead.
Croome welcomed the Government’s decision to include a question about gender identity in the 2026 Census alongside a question about sexual orientation, but said exclusion of a question about sex characteristics was unacceptable.
“Australians with variations of sex characteristics have poorer health outcomes than other Australians and Census data is essential for improving those outcomes.”
