EDITORIAL: Burn the worm

Sometimes a personal mobile worm might come in handy.

Picture yourself sandwiched in a boring conversation, nowhere to escape, no chance to interject and change the topic.
As the dialogue - to borrow one of our PM's current buzz words – continues, gently turn the knob to 'negative’, just enough so the person dominating the conversation knows to either wind it up, or say something vaguely attention-grabbing.
No need to uncomfortably excuse yourself, nor feign a sudden call of nature.
Useful.
Unfortunately, the worm that now seems to routinely appear every time a political debate is held in Australia is anything but useful.
In fact, it is distracting and often unfair for one or both speakers.
That ‘the worm’ can dominate the promotion of a debate between our country’s leader and its alternative leader is an indictment on Australian politics, its media coverage and – most importantly – the perceived intelligence and attention span of voters.
Indeed, the leaders should be judged in any ‘debate’ (though Sunday night’s presentation was not a debate in the true sense, more a series of speeches), but not by a worm manned by a group of allegedly undecided voters.
If nothing else, the decision to segregate male and female worms provided some minor interest, but far from enough to justify the gimmick’s existence.
So burn the worm and start giving voters a chance to make up their own minds. And banish forever the asinine Twitter comments inexplicably flashed along the bottom of the screen at regular intervals.