WITH emotions running high across the political spectrum, Australia’s ruling Labor Party decided on December 3rd to drop its policy banning gay marriage. A day later, the party’s policy-making national conference in Sydney ditched another long-running ban, this time against selling Australian uranium to India.
Cheers, hoots, standing ovations and shouts of support and dissent from both delegates on the conference floor and from demonstrators outside, attended both momentous decisions. The big question now is how they will affect the political fortunes of Julia Gillard, the prime minister, who had much riding on the conference’s twin outcomes.
