Anti-social media

Twitter thinks global warming is a big issue (polls show otherwise), but that becomes the frame through which we are asked to view Abbott's recent US trip.

More important issues such as trade and terrorism are ignored. They don't "trend".

Twitter also infects the modern Labor Party.

Labor's moved a long way from the days when Gough Whitlam won an election on policies and the positive appeal of "It's time".

The personal attack has become a staple of Labor Party campaigning.

We're asked to believe that Abbott is too stupid and inept to be our Prime Minister, despite successfully bringing down two PMs.

He's ridiculed for even the small things, like his budgie smugglers which have been a large target. Or for being the first to a photo lineup and standing on his own for a couple of second he is labelled "Nigel No Friends".

And Julia Gillard's most celebrated social media moment was her "I will not be lectured by this man" speech, surely the greatest verbal of this century so far.

At a state level it is worse.

In the last Queensland election Labor targeted Campbell Newman for being corrupt. The campaign collapsed when they admitted they had no evidence. Likewise Ted Baillieu was similarly mauled in Victoria.

There is a downside for the left in Twitter addiction – by polarising opinion and creating a cool in-group it also produces a much larger nerdy out-group, and no matter how cool you are, you only get one vote.

Australia is the land where we take the Sunshine Harvester to tall poppies and poppy envy has been the fuel which has lifted Liberal leaders from Menzies to Abbott to landslide victories.