ON Tony Windsor's desk in his NSW Tamworth office yesterday were a carton of apples, a bag of large grapefruit, a CD by C&W singer Graeme Connors, piles of newspapers and documents.

But no computer.

That's because the man who gave Labor government because he backed its plan for a national broadband network, cannot use a computer.

He hasn't really tried since university. A BlackBerry is his limit.

"I can't even operate a computer. I haven't got one on my desk. But I've got people in here who can," he said.

"I did computer programming at university and they were punch cards then, and I used to be fascinated with linear programming in terms of problem solving. But I'm ignorant now."

He said he might have backed the Coalition: "That was the easy path for me. But I've carried on for 19 years now about trying to break this nexus of the small, the remote, and the distant.



"One thing that takes that all out of the game is the internet."

And he believed Labor's pledge of a fibre-based network meant it would be easier to boost broadband services later, while the Coalition's wireless option had limitations.

"It was the game breaker. If they stuff it up, I get stuffed too," he said.

Mr Windsor is relaxed for a man who has helped form a government, and amazingly, the 17-day ordeal didn't cost him much sleep.

"A couple of nights it did, but just waking up early. No, I don't think I did too bad," he said.

"Once we established a process, something was going to happen at the end of it. Once it was established it was just hard work then, it was more weariness than stress that got to us.

"But it was a big moment. But life goes on. The end of the world won't happen, we've got a great country, the economy's steaming away."

Only one person knew of his decision before he announced it. He told his wife Lyn, a primary school teacher, on Tuesday morning he was leaning to Labor.



At 2.30pm he rang her at school, told her that was what he would be doing, and suggested she watch it on television.