The best guess today is that anyone who asserts they know who'll win the coming election before that moment is having you on. They can't know, because the people who will decide the victor still haven't made up their mind.

Crosby's a principal with Kore Communication and chief Aussie pollster for Canadian firm Aurora Strategy, which means she wants to quantify the mood. That's why she likes the huge numbers that are amassed over extended timeframes to inform us who will (probably) win when we go to the polls on (probably) May 7. The trouble is there's so much volatility (and sheer, raw anger) out in the electorate that quantitative figures just can't explain which way the people whose votes will decide this election are going to swing as they stand with their pencils poised over the ballot paper.

The problem is these voters, the ones whose votes will be critical in determining who wins, haven't yet made up their mind how they'll vote and this is an election that's going to be decided seat-by-seat, preference-by-preference.

Crosby's scathingly blunt. "Neither party", she says, "has been able to establish a consistent narrative. Look at the recent NSW by-elections: four different seats and four different results. No overall trend; in fact it's chaotic voter behaviour. This means every seat in the country is up for grabs. There's at least fifteen seats where the result can't be predicted with any certainty."

She believes the reason is simple: neither side has created a compelling story to explain why they are deserving of the public's votes.

"Normally, winning parties have a clear, cohesive message that dominates the campaign", Crosby says. This time, however, she believes "neither side has been able to create a consistent narrative explaining why people should vote for them."

It's a shocking and scathing indictment. It's also one that's hard to argue with. Essential poll, for example, has stopped providing two-party-preferred results, instead choosing to isolate the undecided. The most recent figures were Labor 47; Coalition 46, but a decisive eight percent still unsure. This means there are two trend lines. Labor's vote is rising, but the number supporting 'other' is growing even faster. Some analysts assert that's because neither side has any policies. Nobody can 'change the conversation' because there is none; it's all over the place.

The government's desperate, stoking ridiculous fears about national security issues simply because Labor can't deny something that's fabricated out of nothing. Scott Morrison's claims about straight-man Richard Marles are so completely farcical that if he says this he'll soon be asserting that Jim Chalmers is from the planet Mars. Actually, and come to think of it, I probably have more confidence insisting that Marles is genuinely not a Manchurian candidate than vouching for Chalmers, but let's not go there.

The next move, which is planned for the election campaign itself, is a huge interest-rate scare campaign, asserting these will rise as soon as the opposition's elected.

Complete rubbish, of course, a confection with about as much nutritional value as fairy floss, but this doesn't mean it won't bite with particular voters.

Last year, despite COVID, more than 446,000 houses and 144,000 units changed hands. That's a lot of people, in electorates spread throughout the country, paying off mortgages. Given the markets are already pricing in speculation there will be a rate rise shortly after the election, if not before, how can the opposition possibly combat such a damaging attack.

MORE NICHOLAS STUART:

The very best fear campaigns are built around a farrago of truth and lies, blended together with complete disregard for the truth. It's almost as if the more outrageous they are, the greater the propensity of people to believe them - and it's been done before.

Think of Labor's use of 'Mediscare' two elections ago and the Liberals' accusation that the opposition was going to reintroduce death duties last time. The government's determined to win this election and it isn't going to baulk at accusing Labor of anything just because it isn't true.

The opposition appears to think it can get by without a program and rely on the government's unpopularity. Perhaps it's right. Meanwhile, in the world the rest of us inhabit, the Australia Institute catalogues how climate change will send temperatures soaring. Heat already accounts for more deaths than COVID. The bellwether, currently Liberal electorate of Lindsay in Sydney's West was, on January 4, 2020, the hottest place on the planet. Anyone who wants to live here needs urgent action on climate change to avoid the nightmare scenario of 42 days of temperatures soaring above 35 degrees every year. Labor, however, refuses to detail policy action as it urgently avoids alienating coal workers in the Hunter and Queensland. Anthony Albanese thinks he can square the circle without spelling out an action plan. He's avoiding reality, creating space for the charge that he's too frightened to come up with policies addressing such critical issues. In the meantime the government, untethered to and unbothered by truth, fabricates its own reality out of myth, stoked by fear, powered by lies.

Its attempt to create a bogeyman out of China demonstrates its determination to throw even national security under the bus as it desperately struggles to stay in power and Peter Dutton howls at the moon. The only thing neither side seems prepared to discuss is the truth.

Perhaps it's no surprise there are so many voters who can't make up their minds on who they'll vote for.