Everyone loves a political renegade who tells it how it is. It feels good to hear someone repeat to us our own problems and frustrations and give us that feeling that someone is going to do something about it.
These people usually claim to be "independent" of the major political parties and claim to be above partisan politics.
But history has proven that many of these claims are false and many so called "independents" are anything but.
While I share people's frustrations with the major parties, there must be a recognition that they have at least done something right over the past 120 years to be where we are today.
They have helped guide the country through two World Wars, a Great Depression, the Global Financial Crisis and - most recently - a global pandemic.
Australia today now shares one of the highest standards of living in the world.
There are minority parties, such as One Nation, the Greens and Palmer United Party, who like to heckle from the grandstands. But hazard a thought if they actually get a jersey and had to run the show.
Recently there has been a rise in so called "independents" who want to shun party politics all together and "Burke and Wills it" all on their own.
They claim to run on issues that affect their local constituents and don't want to be tied to national policies that might be unpopular in their own electorates.
"Independents" aren't a new concept - they have been causing our political process headaches since 1901.
In most recent memory, probably the most "infamous" independent was Brian Harradine.
He was a Labor-Union-aligned Tasmanian Senator from 1975 to 2005 and caused Gough Whitlam headaches from 1960 right through to John Howard in 1996 with the sale of Telstra and changes to the GST when he held the balance of power in the Senate.
He held the whole country hostage and was effectively a "power of one".
Who can forget the two independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, who sat in formerly strong Nationals seats yet decided to back Julia Gillard to form a minority government in 2010.
Both were responsible for saddling Australia with one of the most dysfunctional governments in our history.
More recently, we have seen Zali Steggall in Warringah - where she beat Tony Abbott in 2019 - Helen Haines in Indi and Rebekha Sharkie in Mayo win high profile seats on the basis of "independence". But their record shows they vote predominantly with Labor.
This upcoming election we have seen the "independent" movement being super charged, with as many as 21 "independents" being funded by the Climate 200 group backed by millionaire Simon Holmes a Court, who has raised more than $7 million.
These "independents" are being run in mainly safe Liberal held seats, such as Wentworth, North Sydney, Kooyong, Goldstein and Curtin.
In my home seat of Hinkler we have seen a bizarre situation of our local Mayor Jack Dempsey throwing his hat in the ring to run as an "independent" against sitting LNP MP Keith Pitt.
Cr Dempsey has shown a strange interest in federal issues in the past 12 months, talking about everything but his job as Mayor - including meat labelling laws, mobile black spots, internet speeds, gender pay gaps and, more recently, climate change.
He is a former LNP State Government Minister, but has been very vocal in his criticism of the LNP and been very public of his support for Anthony Albanese.
He is an experienced political operative and it is unlikely that he would give up a $158,000 a year pay packet as Mayor on a whim.
No doubt he will likely benefit from Labor-Green-aligned preferences.
No doubt his "climate change" platform may also attract some Climate 200 funding.
One of the great things of being an Australian is that we get to vote for who and whatever we want.
But don't be fooled into thinking that those votes won't be used by some to manipulate the system to their political advantage.
It will be a tight race come May 21, and I just hope Australians know who they are electing and actually voting for.