Best places to find independent SEO specalists?

Hey guys, Long story short I have been with an agency for about 9 months and have been pretty dissatisfied with the results and the communication. From my experience most agencies play a numbers game and will do the least work possible to maintain a contract and will continuously use impossible to verify excused i.e google updates (which is legitimate obviously but as a client its really hard to know for sure) I'm really sick of feeling lost in the weeds, so I want to find an independent SEO specialist somewhere in Australia. How do you even find these people? Any google search is completely dominated by agencies and any Linkdin / job promotion websites and filled with remote workers (outside Australia) Hoping someone has insight into a good avenue to find someone. Thanks for reading.