Right, left, third way...? If you were in charge of a large company, would you seize on some ideological position and try and run your business to match, or would you look at the most effective way to utilise your resources in a manner that brings the best possible outcomes for everyone?

We have the tools, both human and technological, to drop voodoo politics and replace it with rational decision-making for everybody's benefit. Continuing with the current adversarial approach is a stupid waste of time and resources -- not to mention some fine minds.

We now have evidence-based medicine -- how about some evidence-based politics?

Sounds like a fantastic idea. How do you get around the football team mentally. To some people if it is not their preferred team in power , you have an agitator for the life of the parliament.
To get rid of that mentality and vote for a middle of the road party, may be a big ask. Skeptics i think would win the day.

Just talking about 'the third way' shows the right leaning bent of this author.

No bigger farce, apart from Gillard's pretend 'education revolution', has come out of politics in recent years than the 'third way'.

I'm surprised to see no mention of Latham, another third way acolyte.

"What this shift to the right has meant for democratic nations of the world is that political opportunity is beginning to open up on the left-hand end of existing mainstream parties. This can be witnessed by the rise of Barack Obama, the Liberal Democrats in the UK, the left-leaning Julia Gillard in Australia, and the increasing importance of the Greens in political discussions around the world."

Sorry, Barack Obama has turned into the 'white' politician he always was, but now carries the odium of, quite reasonably, being called an Uncle Tom for selling out all those black voters that saw the colour of his face but not his politics when they voted for him.

The Lib-Dems in the UK are now a spent force, having wholeheartedly adopted pure Toryism, even beyond the extent that Blair did. A short lived fizz, their fate sealed with the HECS fee lift to students, and the axing of the student support for poor students.

As for the comment "the left-leaning Julia Gillard", hello! Gillard left the Left as long ago as Tanner did, both happily donning the mantle of rightwing economic policy supporters as happily as Craig Emmerson and Joe Hockey do.

Please, the 'third way' was bollocks from the very start. There is no 'third way' within a capitalist system, and there is no 'civilsing global capitalism' either.

If people want a different outcome, they need to look for a different system altogether, not to tinker with what we have and pretend it is being 'improved'.