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Labor and the Greens this week voted down two bills seeking to restore biological sex definitions to the Sex Discrimination Act — without allowing parliamentary debate.

Both were defeated at an early procedural stage, an extraordinarily rare parliamentary occurrence.

Senator Michaelia Cash introduced her Sex Discrimination Amendment (Restoring Common Sense and Recognising Biological Sex) Bill 2026 on Wednesday night. One Nation’s Pauline Hanson tabled the Acknowledging Biological Reality Bill in the Senate on Monday.

Both sought to reverse the Julia Gillard Labor Government’s 2013 removal of sex definitions from the Act.

Both were blocked before debate could proceed.

“Labor and the Greens killed it before it could even be debated,” Cash stated in a social media post following the vote.

The Bills and the Blocks

Cash outlined what the bills aimed to protect: “Our Bill would protect the rights of women and girls in single sex spaces — for example — in toilets, change rooms, domestic violence shelters and sporting facilities.”

She rejected suggestions the proposals were extreme: “That isn’t radical. It isn’t controversial. It’s common sense.”

Cash accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of prioritising ideology over women’s interests: “Instead of standing with Australian women and girls, Anthony Albanese chose political ideology over their privacy, dignity and safety. He wouldn’t even allow the Parliament to debate my Bill. That is a disgrace.”

Despite the defeat, Cash pledged the Coalition would continue pushing the issue: “We will keep fighting in the Parliament, and if Labor continues to betray Australian women and girls — we will take this fight to the next election.”

The Australian Labor Party National Constitution states that it “stands for… the elimination of discrimination… on the grounds of… gender identity”.

‘Not Prepared to Debate’: One Nation

One Nation similarly emphasised the procedural abnormality in a social media post following the bill failing to proceed to debate.

“It’s extremely rare that Bills are voted down at such an early stage in the Senate,” the post stated.

Hanson took further aim at the bill’s block, posting, “Labor and the Greens are too scared to even debate their position because they know it’s indefensible.”

“They believe biological men should be allowed to [enter] female only spaces, no matter the consequences.”

The party concluded the block revealed something troubling about Labor and the Greens: “It shows that Labor and Green Senators are not even prepared to debate their extreme views on gender identity.”

One Nation reiterated its position: “One Nation stand for biological reality and common sense on issues relating to gender identity and in protecting female only spaces.”

Yesterday Pauline put forward the “Acknowledging Biological Reality Bill” in the Senate. This Bill would have protected women and safeguarded female only spaces. Sadly, the Bill was voted down by Labor and Green Senators. It’s extremely rare that Bills are voted down at such an… pic.twitter.com/v17LMbiSh6

— One Nation Australia (@OneNationAus) June 30, 2026

The decisions to block to bills drew sharp criticism from women’s rights group Women’s Forum Australia. It’s CEO, Rachael Wong, blasted the blocks as “an absolute disgrace”.

“They know their position to allow men claiming to be women in female-only spaces, services and sports is indefensible,” she wrote on X, “so they won’t even debate the issue.”

Julia Gillard’s Sex Discrimination Amendment Concession

Adding intrigue to the current controversy is a recent admission from Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister whose 2013 government made the original changes to remove sex definitions from the Act.

Delivering the Cockroft Rutherford lecture at Manchester University on Wednesday evening, Gillard was asked by an audience member about the insertion of “gender identity” into the Sex Discrimination Act, resulting in Australian women no longer being defined by biological sex.

Gillard claimed she was not responsible for the current legal situation, stating that “It was a different time. So it is an error to uplift what we know now and the public discourse now and just putting it down to 14 years ago.”

The former Prime Minister claimed that gender identity issues — such as is now before the courts in the Tickle v Giggle case — “were not raised by anyone (back in 2012, when the legislation came before parliament) because they simply weren’t a matter of public discourse the way they are today.”

However, the Explanatory Memorandum for the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Bill 2013 conflict with Australia’s first female Prime Minister’s attempt at absolution.

“These definitions are repealed in order to ensure that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are not interpreted so narrowly as to exclude, for example, a transgender woman from accessing protections from discrimination on the basis of other attributes contained in the SDA [Sex Discrimination Act]”, the explanation states.

Yet her concession — that the landscape has fundamentally changed since 2013 — appears to be an implicit nod that the Sex Discrimination Act, as it currently stands, is not fit for purpose.

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Images via Brian Doyle.