Australia, which will be one of the first countries on the planet to see the sun rise on the year 2000, is facing Australia into the new millennium on the threshold of far-reaching changes.
Earlier this month voting ended for the Constitutional Convention, a vast exercise which could pave the way for the long-awaited cutting of ties with Britain and declaration of an Australian republic.
The convention, to consist of 152 delegates and due to begin its work in February, will start debating how - or if - Australia will make the change after two centuries as a constitutional monarchy. Half the number of delegates are being chosen by a non-compulsory poll, with numbers weighted according to population - so New South Wales returns 20 candidates, the Northern Territory two, and so on. The other 76 are being appointed by the federal government of Mr John Howard, who is not the greatest enthusiast for a republic. However his predecessor, Mr Paul Keating, started the process when he occupied the Lodge, official residence of the PM, and the juggernaut, although a little erratic and marked by a measure of apathy, has been trundling along.
The result of the convention's deliberations are not binding: the question will still have to go to a referendum. In recent months the pro-republicans seem to have been gaining ground, with no less a personage than a former governor-general (representative of the British sovereign and titular head of the country), Sir Zelman Cowen, coming out in favour of abandoning the old order.
The other big challenge facing Australia at the end of 1997 is the vexed question of aboriginal land rights. The refusal by the senate (upper house) to approve legislation which, in effect, rolls back the rights of native title achieved under Keating's Labor has brought the country perilously close to an early election. A former prime minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, has even said that the government's new native-title plans, twinned with the anti-immigration rhetoric of Queensland MP Ms Pauline Hanson, has made racism a significant factor in Australian politics.