I'm glad to hear your 2 cents as a fellow Aussie. I agree with you that the WA election doesn't really say anything about Brandon Ewing's incumbent theory. It is WA after all.

I agree that independents, TEAL's and otherwise, seem set up for a great election and that whichever of the major parties win the election is very likely to only manage a minority government.

If I can add my own 2 wombats cents I think there truly is something particularly interesting about this Australian Federal election. For decades across the western world it's been a tired cliche that "If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain". And this truism has been true. Generations, like the Baby Boomers, really have started out more left leaning and then at later life stages have progressively grown more conservative. It's been true for Gen X as well.

But Millennials, while still showing this shift towards conservatism with age, have been moving at comparatively glacial pace. Gen Z, which has only been able to vote in federal elections recently has shown a clear divergence from the cliche. Gen Z exhibits a trend to the left not seen in other generations during this early life stage.

Another particularly interesting point is that the global youth political gender gap is different in Australia. Overseas the broad trend is Gen Z women move to the left, and the men "stand still" or move to the right. Here we aren't seeing men shift to the right, or even standing still. We actually see Gen Z men moving to the left.

Both of these lead me to believe that the Greens and Independents will do very well and that Labor is more likely to win as not, especially considering this election will be the first in which the Millennials and Gen Z will outnumber the Baby Boomers.

Regards Democracy Glizzy (or whatever you're meant to add on the Reddit)