The vast majority of candidates realise that "going it alone" as an independent is nigh on impossible, save for a few very rare exceptions.....and hence they align themselves with the political party that most closely aligns with their personal philosophy.
Sure, but (and this is getting off topic) I think you'll see more and more politicians on the cross benches in years to come.
(A lot, not all, of what I am about to say refers to Canberra)
It might have been the exception in the past, but it is becoming quite common now (especially with the rise of the greens), so I would expect that going forward we will see more minor parties holding the BoP in the Senate.
And, the prospect that cross-benchers could actually determine the government of the day (in the House of Reps) is, as we know, very much real. It's happened once, will almost certainly happen again.
In the Federal House of Reps there were 6 on on the cross-benches in 2010.
After this last election there are now 5.
People come and go of course, but if the election results are close enough then those few seats in the middle are the kingmakers.
What I find interesting is the sorts of people who end up on the CBs. Often big personalities (Katter, Richard Torbay [ex NSW Parliament]), people pissed off with the major parties (again Katter, Tony Windsor, Oakeshott). Or "Niche" parties with a strong candidate (Adam Bandt in Melbourne, Jan Barham in NSW Parliament [both greens]).
And then there is the biggest of them all - Clive Palmer who is (1) big personality, who is (2) pissed off with the major parties, and is (3) now representing a niche party. To borrow a sporting analogy, if there was a "triple-crown" for cross-bench MPs, he'd have it. Palmer has never been an MP for a major party, but according to Wikipedia he was elected to Life Membership of the Qld Branch of the National Party back in 1992, and as recently as 2012 he said he would be seeking to represent the Liberal Party.
My point being that circumstances that have led to "non-major party representation" in the lower house of a Parliament (be it Federal or State) aren't likely to go away imo... if anything they could become more common.
Ted Mack (NSW Parliament and later Federal) was way ahead of his time in that regard (btw, he retired from NSW Parliament 2 days before he was due to receive a parliamentary pension - a personal statement against what he considered the excesses of public political office).