Visiting US psephologist Frank Luntz follows the media line of presenting our election process as if it were a presidential election. It isn’t. We elect a team, with the PM serving at pleasure with one vote out of over 20. While a coalition cabinet chosen by the PM will consist of individuals from widely different backgrounds, the likely Rudd cabinet, chosen by Caucus, can be readily portrayed as a team of unreconstructed union bosses. The Coalition election campaign will try to make sure the electorate believes this.

Sky’s “Voters’ Verdict” featured yet another worm wielding studio audience. Claimed to consist of carefully selected floating voters, the filtering process was obviously deficient. One participant, with the cold eyes of a 24 carat gold Howard hater, confirmed this in every well rehearsed answer of the many he was invited to give.

It was as useful as the unquestioning media frenzies which surround the latest opinion polls. And on this, was the Galaxy Bennelong poll, taken just after the last interest rate rise, skewed? Why hasn’t Galaxy answered the claim it rejected respondents over 60 and those who had no mortgage?

The polls cannot be taken as a serious indication of how people will vote in the election. Even the Keating government scored 46.4% in 1996. The Morgan Poll realistically isolates “soft” voter support and finds that Labor has almost three times the soft support of the Coalition (Morgan says that 6.5% of all voters are “soft” Coalition voters and 17% are “soft” ALP voters).

And with silent numbers, the filtering of nuisance calls, people not working 9-5, and others not bothering with land lines, just how reliable are the samples on which telephone polling is based? As to face-to-face polls, people today are understandably wary of strangers asking questions. Add to that the “shy voter” phenomenon which so embarrassed UK pollsters in 1992. And how do the pollsters measure the impact of fraudulent voting? Redesigned late last century allegedly to “make voting easier”, the system is still wide open to fraud, even if closing the polls early will reduce fraudulent registrations.

Meanwhile, Harold Mitchell thinks Geoffrey Cousins’ campaign can destroy Malcolm Turnbull. Not if the advertisement in the Wentworth Courier (29/8) is any indication. Appending a list of the usual suspect celebrities (even without Peter Garrett) impresses almost no one, except the media. True, Wentworth voters may claim to be “concerned” about the environment, but their lifestyles suggest otherwise. No matter what they may say to the pollsters, will they really trust their future wealth to the unproven mayor of the dysfunctional Bondi Peoples’ Republic or to government by union bosses?

With the revelation that a former Chief Justice of Australia advised that there was sufficient prima facie evidence to bring charges over the shredding of evidence by the Goss cabinet, Piers Akerman has stepped up calls for federal action over the Heiner scandal.

Saying Kevin Rudd has opened the way for a further inquiry, he argued on The Insiders that this could be “a very serious sleeper” in the election. Andrew Bolt mentioned this in his blog, and Alan Jones has discussed it at length. Michael Hodgman told the Tasmanian Parliament it was discussed recently at a meeting of shadow Attorneys General. When Piers Akerman concentrates on an issue he can be singularly effective; just recall what he did to the Kirner government.