Yes, let's hope so. With around 85 - 90 % of us within a fairly narrow political band that includes the slightly left and slightly right of centre, neither of the major parties can hope to get elected if they pander too much to the extremes. The complaint is often that, despite their rhetoric, Labor and Liberal are pretty much the same when in government. I see that as a good thing, because it's that middle ground that almost all of us live in politically.

The big problem in Australia is the Senate. A senator's constituency is, in effect, simply the preselection committee of his or her party. Typically, only one Senate seat is really up for grabs at an election, the others being foregone conclusions by the placing on the ticket. So the Seante ends up with more than its share of people who are completely out of touch with us. Here's a test. Name all the senators for your state. People rarely get past three, which begs the question as to what the hell the others do to fill their day. And, down here in Tassie, Harradine's invariably one of the three in the answer !

We'll continue to get a Senate dominated by party hacks, lightweights and those who pander to the more extreme elements until we get a better electoral system.

This sounds like the guff Blair was spouting in the 90s, and Latham tried to resurrect in 2004 before he shook Howard by the hand and lost the plot.

I am relieved that he is a former advisor to Emerson, although maybe K Rudd should do a background check on Dr Craig's office just to be sure there are no wild eyed Third Way adherents dreaming up "new" policies.

I disagree with his notion that business is somehow exempt from the requirement for the same sense of social conscience and consciousness.
If political parties are so inculcated of command thinking is this not absorbed from the mentality of business, particular when its actual reach ( eg,"developer" influence ) , through its wealth, into political organisations has become so strong.
This notion of being part of a community rather than above and apart from something akin to a cattle herd ripe for exploitation, is not isolated in political parties, but permeates political cultures from seepae inwards from the overall ( dominant ) culture.
What we really need is some sort of mechanism for changing the dominant informative cultural structure(s), so that political parties and business alike, and other formations again forground ethics rather than bring trapped within the current expediency driven, isolationist, predatory and adversarial mentality toward the "others", "out there".
Labor once was the bastion for civil society and cooperativism, but subsumed in the current cultural mentality as it is, it has become less policy and vision centred and more just a site for feral opportunists.
The Libs, likewise, amputated their "small l" wing and no longer participate in a social project, but rather its dismantling in the pursuit of self absorbed narcissism and nihilism botoxed as
"freedom" and "individualism".