People living in regional Western Australia have the luxury of choosing from a wide variety of candidates at next weekend's federal election.
But country voters feeling disenchanted with the major parties would be hard pressed to find an alternative voice that is not an anti-COVID-19 mandate campaigner.
Aside from the Greens and the Western Australia Party (WAP), all the minor parties running lower house candidates in Forrest, O'Connor and Durack have policies spruiking "medical freedom" or slamming the government decisions to make vaccines compulsory for many workers.
Some candidates in the mix lost their jobs because of the vaccine mandates and several hold strong anti-vaccination views.
Policies derived from 'grievance'
WA's vaccine mandate, which encompasses about 75 per cent of the workforce, is one of the strictest in the nation.
Curtin University's extremist research network co-director Ben Rich said it was a concerning time in Australian politics.
"It's telling that neither of the major parties have put this on their platform," he said.
"[The anti-mandate parties] have very astutely observed in a notable amount of individuals in the population that there is this grievance out there and have been willing to capitalise on it and in some cases inflame it for their own political agendas."
Despite the over-representation of anti-mandate candidates, more than 95 per cent of the state's population received two jabs against COVID-19.
"I have known many people who have been supportive of the mandates, or who have been supportive of the major parties but not the mandates, and they are really kind of scratching their heads at this point," he said.
Dissatisfaction at voting booths
The ABC spoke to several early voters outside a polling station in the regional port city Bunbury, in WA's south-west corner, most whom intended to vote for a major party.
Those who did plan to vote for an independent said it was an issue of dissatisfaction with the major parties rather than because of COVID mandates.
Gloria Speakman said she would vote for one of the two majors, but felt the independents had a big role to play and that no single issue was behind her vote.
"Nothing specific," she said.
Marco Hobbs said he would vote for an independent because he felt the quality of the candidates for the major parties was so low.
He said his vote had nothing to do with vaccine mandates.
"It's pretty sad, when you see the candidates, that it's the best Australia's got to offer," he said.
"I just think it's just good not to run with the mainstream and to give other people a chance, given how low the quality of the main parties is."
Scott McLennan voted for an independent and had been supporting and handing out how-to-vote cards for some parties opposed to mandates.
"Major parties need to be held accountable," he said.
"They're just ramming things through.
"Mandates affected me — I had the jab that I didn't want to have.
Job losses lead people to politics
The Great Australia Party's (GAP) Tracy Aitken told voters on the campaign trail she was refusing to mandate the vaccine for workers at her Bunbury construction business.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party candidate Shane Mezgner is a practising chiropractor who refused to disclose his vaccination status to the ABC.
Australian Federation Party (AFP) candidates Craig Shore and Isaac Middle were among those who lost their jobs after refusing to get vaccinated.
Mr Middle said that experience was his "main motivation" for his decision to enter politics.
"I lost both of those jobs and that sort of changed my outlook on life in many ways, and energised me to see if I could make a difference," he said.
While acknowledging he was in the "minority" of people who had chosen not to get the vaccine, he predicted the results of the election would reflect how many people were opposed to the mandates.
'Freedom' agreements between minors
Mr Middle also confirmed there were formal and informal agreements in place between the minor parties, including a preference deal between the AFP, the Informed Medical Options Party and GAP.
"There's also another alliance called the 'freedom alliance' which are political parties and organisations that are committed to helping and stand together on this issue," he said.
'Freedom' campaigners in regional WA include candidates from Clive Palmer's United Australia Party (UAP), the Australian Christians and the Liberal Democrat Party.
A total of 26 candidates across all WA seats have joined an official cohort of anti-mandate campaigners called 'Reignite Democracy Australia'.
There are some voices in the major parties critical of vaccine mandates, including the Liberal MP for O'Connor, Rick Wilson.
"Do truck drivers need to be mandated? I actually don't think so," he said.
"I believe that in Western Australia the mandates went too far and it's caused an enormous amount of grief and an enormous amount of heartache for many good people who basically want to decide what … they put into their bodies."
Voters urged to scrutinise messaging
Australian Medical Association WA head Mark Duncan-Smith urged people to understand who they were voting for before heading into the ballot box.
"I find that the anti-mandate agenda is pretty much a rationalisation for the anti-vax agenda and I really don't see a lot of difference between the two," he said.
"Anyone looking to vote for a minor party as a protest vote against Liberal or Labor has to look at what they actually stand for and make sure it makes sense to them.
"Don't just vote for them because they're alternative as a protest."
University of Western Australia vaccination policy expert Katie Atwell said while some of the messages from the minor parties were "not great" from a public health perspective, she said most people had already made up their mind about getting the jab.
