JULIA GILLARD has given the green light for Labor's national conference to be brought forward by more than six months so the party can have a full-blown fight over policy differences without hurting its election chances.

With pressure growing in the government for a debate on gay marriage and other contentious issues, the Prime Minister has given the go-ahead for the conference to be held in the first week of December next year. With an election due in 2013, the conference would typically have been be held about July 2012.

Ms Gillard told the Herald last night that it was ''too easy to use the national conference as an election campaign tool''. Bringing it forward ensured it would be ''a genuine forum for debate and a contest of ideas''.

''If the conference occurs in an election year, the result is inevitably that there is a lot of pressure on the conference to help deliver votes, rather than provide members with a venue to debate important issues of national consequence.

''When it comes to the issue of marriage for same-sex couples, there is a wide range of views within the party, with views very strongly held on both sides of the debate. I'm expecting a respectful debate.''