Martin William Smith wrote:

[...]

>I've never seen it in America or Australia, except at election time
>and then only rarely.  I don't mean something like showing the
>parliamentary sessions on TV, like they were doing in Australia when I
>was there.  That was kind of embarrassing, actually, watching grown
>men paying each other out.  What they do here is pick an issue that
>needs some work and get people together to discuss the problem, and
>they do it pretty much weekly or every other week (not now during
>summer holidays), and they do it on one or the other of the two
>national TV networks in prime time.  That wouldn't happen in America.

Only see that sort of thing on ABC, the public broadcaster, or SBS, the
multi-cultural channel in Australia. But they do a lot of it. The
commercial networks don't do much of that sort. You were watching the wrong
channels when you were in Australia, the commercial channels largely show
American produced, or inspired, programming. As I write I gather the ABC is
broadcasting a panel discussion about human nature and whether it is innate
in humans to enjoy killing each other. There'll be a transcript of some or
all of it put up on the web at (from memory) your.abc.net.au/lateline
tomorrow, perhaps someone would like to send it to the Chomsky list, since
it seems to relate to one of the current threads?
>
>> >The government is always a coalition.  It doesn't have to work out
>> >that way but it seems like an effect of the parties sticking to their
>> >platforms.
>>
>> More likely largely to do with the parliament being elected by
>> proportional representation. I find it difficult to conceive of a
>> political system where parties stick closely to their platforms. ;-)
>
>That's what I said when I saw it.  But there it is.

Appearing to stick with your platform is not the same as actually sticking
with it. Minor parties have to be loyal to their core platform, but often
they weave and dance around the rest. For example the Greens can't betray
their core green constituency on environmental issues, but on economic and
social justice issues they can tend to be a bit slippery. This is because
the green constituency is an otherwise diverse one, from socialist to
capitalist in outlook. Therein lies their contradiction of course, but
that's another story.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell tas.