Thursday, 29 August 2024

LGBTIQA+ community

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:57): (1106) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Equality Harriet Shing, and I take note of her letter of Monday of this week to the federal assistant minister, calling on LGBTIQA+ Australians to be properly counted in the census. The census is one of the most important instruments that governments at a state, federal and local level have. They help us to understand the demographic attributes and needs of our communities, and they inform policy decisions at a macro and micro level. But the answers that you can glean from the census can only be as good as the questions you ask. There are many challenges unique to the LGBTIQA+ community as a whole and amongst its many diverse parts. If we do not have meaningful questions on those attributes, how are governments supposed to appropriately respond to those challenges? How indeed are those communities themselves supposed to work together and self-determine their responses to these challenges if they do not have that same reliable data?

To say that attributes of LGBTIQA+ Australians should not be questioned in the census is to say that those Australians do not get to be fully seen or indeed counted. It is a decision that is as questionable as it is disappointing, which is why I strongly welcome the leadership shown by the minister as well as the leadership shown by the federal member for Macnamara Josh Burns, who has come out today in support of a census that recognises all Australians, and I thank him as well for the work that he has been doing behind closed doors to right this wrong. I am proud to be part of a government that stands up for LGBTIQA+ Australians and Victorians and proud to have federal Labor colleagues, such as Josh Burns, who also stand with us. I ask that the minister continue her advocacy to the federal government on this matter, and I wish her every success in that endeavour. Let us count all Australians in the 2026 census.