The Albanese government’s last-minute rejection of proposed questions on sexuality and gender diversity in the upcoming 2026 census sent bureaucrats into a weekend scramble, new documents show. In the late hours of Friday 23 August and Saturday 24 August, officials at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) agreed to cancel a scheduled media briefing on Monday 26 August and the rollout of its “large-scale” test census to 50,000 households from Tuesday 27 August as a result of the 11th-hour decision. Documents released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show how the independent statistics agency scrambled to ditch its plans within a weekend after a delayed final decision by the government.