Introduction

President Bill Clinton of the United States and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom have both described their approach to public governance as a “Third Way” that is of neither the Right nor Left but new and different. The concept of a Third Way has also gained currency in Australian political circles, especially amongst the Australian Labor Party, and is particularly associated with politicians such as Mark Latham (New Thinking for Australian Labour: Civilising Global Capital 1998) and Lindsay Tanner (Open Australia 1999). The Third Way has also been invoked by Liberal politicians such as Tony Abbott as well as popular economic and social commentators such as Clive Hamilton (Growth Fetish 2003) and the Reverend Tim Costello.