Labor's platform is set to change to endorse gay marriage, following Prime Minister Julia Gillard's insistence that delegates to the party's national conference be allowed to vote as they like on the contentious issue.
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But she has also demanded that if same-sex legislation comes before the Parliament it must be as a private member's Bill and be subject to a conscience vote only.
Delegates will debate the issue this morning, but Ms Gillard's backroom intervention yesterday ensured she would not be embarrassed on the conference floor today.
The Left faction wanted to go further than Ms Gillard's preference of a conscience vote and pushed for a policy of outright and compulsory support for gay marriage.
The Left had secured votes from some Right faction delegates and together they were looking to change the party platform and bind MPs to vote for it. But after the Prime Minister confronted factional bosses, a compromise was reached to allow all parties to save face and - more importantly - ensure Ms Gillard is not rolled at the conference.
She ordered the Right's bosses to stop the fighting over the issue and to let their delegates vote as they like today at the conference.
The eleventh-hour wrangling has cleared the way for the party's platform to be changed and for the definition of marriage to include equality for same-sex partnerships.
But the compromise was that delegates go no further than endorsing a conscience vote only by MPs in Parliament.
ACT Deputy Chief Minister Andrew Barr will today move his motion on gay marriage and said the agreement reached was a good initial outcome.
Labor's three-day national conference kicked off in Sydney yesterday morning with Ms Gillard calling for a ''fair dinkum'' debate throughout the event.
''We didn't join Labor in our youth because we had no opinions,'' she said.
''We didn't come here for a coronation or a campaign launch. We came here for debates, we came here for surprises, we came here to have votes.''
The Prime Minister launched the conference by highlighting Labor's achievements in government and pointing to more changes next year.
''As the party of jobs, we govern for jobs. So in the worst global recession in 70 years, over conservative opposition in the Parliament and beyond, we brought our economy through, stronger than any developed country,'' she said.
''And your Labor Government created more than 700,000 Australian jobs. Labor is the party of growth.''
Ms Gillard repeated her call for greater empowerment of the Labor membership, through party reforms to be debated today.
But she did not endorse the Left's push for the party's rank-and-file to directly choose half of the delegates to each national conference.
