NO MATTER WHERE YOU RUN, YOU END UP ON THIRD:

Australians are all conservatives now (Scott Prasser, 1 May 2007, Online Opinion)

State Labor governments, once known for their interventionist economic strategies, have adopted a more market-oriented policy agenda. In Victoria, the Bracks Government has left largely untouched the reforms from the Kennett revolution in privatisation, cutting local government and using market mechanisms to achieve policy outcomes. In Queensland, the Beattie Government only this week announced the sell-off of the state's lottery and a review of the state's 157 local governments for wide-ranging amalgamation. In Western Australia, the Carpenter Government spurns the excesses of WA Inc.

Nor is this trend just an Australian phenomenon. Tony Blair's New Labour Government in Britain has largely continued Margaret Thatcher's policies. The Iron Lady just did the dirty work in tackling the country's out-of-control trade unions and privatising those decrepit overstaffed government-owned businesses.

Similarly, in the US the Reagan Republican conservative agenda was pursued just as vigorously by a Democratic president. Who can forget Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 when "he pledged to end welfare as we know it"? His subsequent commitment to welfare reform, balanced budgets and free trade was confirmation that he was more in keeping with Barry Goldwater than George McGovern.

And if the British and US cases do not prove the point, bear in mind that even many European countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Germany have adopted the conservative free-market policy agenda of reduced government spending, tax reform and privatisation with some success. Only France remains a reluctant starter and its high unemployment rate testifies to the resultant policy failure of its approach, but a president Nicolas Sarkozy may begin to reverse the tide.

So, far from there being a third way as Blair and Rudd pretend, there is merely the conservative way or a return to non-viable policies of the statist Left.