Police praise revellers at Sydney's Gay Mardi Gras
:: A Thai dancer does her make-up before the parade at the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, Sydney. Around 500,000 people lined the streets from different countries come to watch the spectacular culmination of the month-long festival of art, music and theatre. ::
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian police on Sunday praised the behaviour of the hundreds of thousands of revellers at Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, Australia's premier show of "pink pride."
Police said just 11 people had been arrested, down from 18 in 2006, but expressed concern about the level of alcohol consumption along the parade route.
Operation Commander Assistant Commissioner Garry Dobson said this "might have been the catalyst for a number of incidents, such as one in which three males were taken into custody after they threw bottles into the crowd."
Police had vowed to clamp down on the possession and supply of illegal drugs and warned of the presence of a potentially fatal form of the drug ecstasy, at Saturday night's event.
Scores of stars turned out, with political issues taking centre stage.
On one float, Hottie Howard and the Global Warmers lampooned conservative Prime Minister John Howard, a reluctant recent convert to the reality of global warming, who last year blocked landmark laws that would have allowed gays a form of marriage known as civil unions.
A "Free David Hicks" float highlighted the plight of Australia's sole detainee in Guantanamo Bay, and a Mother Nature straddled a divided world, one half beset by prejudice, with love, tolerance and respect prevailing in the other, reflecting a year in which the environment topped the political agenda.
The openly gay British actor Rupert Everett joined gay cowboy Adam Sutton -- friend of "Brokeback Mountain" star Heath Ledger -- in leading 120 floats and a record 8,000 participants past some 350,000 spectators on central Sydney's Oxford Street.
As well as familiar spectacles like the famous Dykes on Bikes -- women on large motorcycles, many of them bare-breasted -- the parade featured 250 dancing Kylie Minogue impersonators.
A gaggle of Marie Antoinettes served cake, and a gang of Vicky Pollards, from the British comedy "Little Britain", pushed babies' prams up and down the streets.
The parade began as a political protest in 1978 -- before Australia decriminalised homosexuality in 1984 -- and now attracts participants from around the globe.
The iconic event also attracted 1980s pop singer Boy George, who supplied some international flavour at an exclusive after-party.
Since February 4, 2006