Curiosity kills cats but it is cowardice that more often strangles governments - especially social democratic ones in whom hopes start out high.

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This should be a warning to Britain's new ALP-tutored Starmer government which is already pandering to the tabloids and avoiding decisions that might frighten the horses.

Things are more advanced in Australia, but not always in a good way. Friday's partial reversal of a move to exclude gender identity and sexuality in the next census, ended a week of bizarre governmental self-harm. An unforced error born of fear, woeful judgement and vaulting insensitivity.

Armed with the most flaccid argument since we were told harmful gambling ads would save free-to-air TV (seriously) Anthony Albanese's ministers had justified their retreat from a promise to LGBTQI Australians, as an effort to shield them from an ugly debate.

Literally no one believed this. Besides, who's in charge here? An elected government or a cast of reactionary shock jocks?

Surely if we learned anything from decades of peripheralising minorities it is that denying recognition is dehumanising. Actively doing that through exclusion from the official five-yearly survey of the population feels like wilful de-citizenship. Its unmistakeable message: "We don't count you because you don't count."

Anyway, it was Labor's cravenness that invited the heat in the end by pre-emptively kowtowing to News Corp sensibilities about galloping "wokeism".

Just six Labor MPs had the good conscience to speak out.

Even Liberals were aghast with Victoria's Keith Wolohan saying he "couldn't see the damage or the harm" in such questions, and Tasmania's Bridget Archer frustrated Labor "had created a controversy where there was none".

The unremarkable had become a hot........

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