Packer's loss is our gain

I am not a fan of the Third Way. It seems to me to be an attempt by erstwhile left-of-centre parties to move to the centre while still pretending to be on the left, and is not coherent because of this pretence. But comments like Latham’s parliamentary statement make me worry that in fact these parties have not moved at all and are only conveniently using the rhetoric of liberalism to cloak their real agendas.

In fact, Latham lost a valuable opportunity here to push his own progressive expenditure tax, which, by taxing expenditure and not savings would actually penalise Packer for his gambling habit, while rewarding him for his investments. It would also penalise him for his golf course and his polo fields and all his other conspicuous consumption, but would raise none of the objections I have discussed and leave him free to aggregate wealth to all our mutual benefit.

In a paper delivered at Melbourne University to the Australian Economic Review’s Policy Forum, Latham said, "So too, there are two types of Opposition parties. The first represents what I would call scab lifting. This is an Opposition which sees its role as exploiting the change process….The second type of Opposition involves agenda setting. . It offers the electorate hope, not just reassurance."

Come on Mark. You are exactly right. Show us what the second type of Opposition might be like. And prove that the Third Way is more than just a new coat of paint on an old tart.