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Labor tried to snip off a loose thread this week, left hanging from the Coalition era — the exclusion of sexuality from the national census questions.
Instead, its relationship has frayed with a community Labor would normally hope to have onside.
In 2019, before the last census, former Coalition assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar caused controversy when he requested the Australian Bureau of Statistics scratch a question on sexuality from its draft census forms.
Labor at the time said LGBTQIA+ Australians were being ignored in health policy planning. The ABS later admitted it "regretted" excluding the question, acknowledging it left some people feeling "invisible and excluded" — not to mention the health and social services departments said they needed the data to deliver their services.
Now they're in charge, Labor have confirmed they will sit in that regret, saying they did not want to create a "divisive" debate; certainly not so close to an election.
LGBTQIA+ groups have responded they don't need to be insulated from debate, they want change at the next census, which is not for another two years.
Once the first sitting prime minister to join Sydney's Mardi Gras, Anthony Albanese might not be getting a return invite.
The government's attempt to avoid opening a can of worms has already been lost.
In a squirm-in-your-seat interview on Radio National, Jim Chalmers attempted to explain the government's decision.
He said the government understood the disappointment, took that feedback seriously, and he would not dismiss it — but he was not proposing a change of direction.
It won't go away that easily, and there are rumblings on Labor's backbench that the government should show some "courage".
Labor can't escape division that easily
Labor has lost its appetite to tackle identity issues since its defeat in the referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
It abandoned its promise to reform religious discrimination laws that allow faith-based schools to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ staff.
Putting the horses a mile behind the cart, the government said it didn't want a "divisive" fight and wouldn't introduce legislation until the Coalition had agreed to it.
Divisive was the word of the week, which Chalmers began by throwing down against "pathologically divisive" Peter Dutton.
Losing a senator over the war in Gaza, watching its left faction rebel over a CFMEU crackdown, and seeing the Greens eye their inner city seats, the Labor Party probably feels divided enough.
But getting things done in government necessitates disagreement — every vote held in the chamber is a "division", after all.
Looking back in anger
Some of Labor's natural allies are not happy.
City universities are up in arms over a plan to limit how many international students can begin study in Australia to 270,000 places each year.
As political reporter Maani Truu explains, several rely heavily on the wallets of foreign students to prop up the sandstone.
It's a bad time to be a prospective international student, with uncertainty whether some offers will have to be torn up.
Not far from those urban campuses, the high-vis suite of Labor's voting base stood in city centre gardens this week with vows to "bury the ALP" or disaffiliate from the party in reaction to the government forcing a takeover of the construction union, the CFMEU.
The Greens can see the cracks in the foundation too, and wearing his theatre blacks, Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather was happy to stand in to lead the labour war cry: "when workers rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back."
A minor inconvenience for Chandler-Mather was the makeshift coffin in front of him, draped in Albanese's portrait, and the "ALBANAZI" signs in the wings.
Max Chandler-Mather says he didn't realise the sign propped up against the stage in front of him was a makeshift coffin. (AAP Image: Jono Searle)
His party leader Adam Bandt told the National Press Club those signs weren't appropriate, and the allegations of CFMEU "thuggery" and criminal consorting were concerning, though not concerning enough to stop his MP from leading the chant at the rally.
Chandler-Mather, for his part, says it's not fair to expect him to audit every sign at a rally — not a courtesy the Greens extended to former PM Tony Abbott when he stood beside signs saying "ditch the witch" and "Bob Brown's bitch".
LoadingThe right to turn off your email
While the biffo in politics continues, Australians gained a new right this week.
From Monday, you are more entitled than ever to roll your eyes when the boss sends an email at 10pm.
But will you have to fight for your right not to receive a cold shoulder the next day? That's for the courts to decide.
And there soon may be another one — airlines may have to cough up when they boot you from a flight they already knew was overbooked.
That's great news if you spent $7,000 after your flight from Japan was cancelled but you can't get a refund because your receipt is in Japanese — for example.
Don't rush to book your next trip, though.
The legislation for an aviation "charter of rights" won't be introduced until next year, AKA just before the election, and won't take effect until 2026, AKA post-election (or maybe never, if the Opposition is feeling "divisive").