Australia unlike the US has a privately owned MSM dominated by conservatives I.e. Murdoch. Or conservatives in their context anyway. The other side has a minority of the conventional MSM but balances out by controlling the ABC - the Australian version of the BBC. This means that government foolishness is widely criticized and there really is a national conversation. Unfortunately this is not the case in the US.
I've often wondered why rich conservative put up with this rather than move to buy up a bug chunk of the US media. Should be on sale now that no one reads/watches/listens.