EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Our top story is the final fortnight of Parliament before the election. For his assessment of the last three years of government, after deciding to support Labor in September, 2010, I spoke just a short time ago to the Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor, who was in our Parliament House studio.

Tony Windsor, thanks for being with us.

TONY WINDSOR, INDEPENDENT MP: Pleasure, Emma.

EMMA ALBERICI: As this 43rd Parliament winds up, what's been the lesson of minority government?

TONY WINDSOR: Well I think it's been quite a good parliament actually. I think for the number of parliament - I think I've been in seven parliaments. This is the second hung parliament. There's a lot of similarities with this one and the first one. But I don't think I've been in a parliament where the committee processes have worked quite as well as this one. And that's really because the executive reflects the hung nature of the Parliament and hasn't been able to control the committee processes as much as it does in normal majority parliaments. So we saw for the first time - the Murray-Darling committee was a good example where all the players - Liberal, National, Labor, independent - recognised that they could have some real input in the decision-making process and so put a lot of hard work into it. Whereas in the past, the government of the day would've had the numbers on the committee and a lot of people felt they were wasting their time going through the process without having a real impact on the outcome.

EMMA ALBERICI: Why doesn't the rest of the community share your perception that this is a good government?

TONY WINDSOR: Well I think there's a number of reasons for that. I think some parliamentarians, some commentators and quite a lot of the general public are still viewing this parliament through the prism of a majority parliament. It's not a majority parliament and we haven't had many minority governments in our history. So they're still tending to see it as Labor-versus-Liberal, and they look at the Senate in a slightly different light because they're used to that being slightly different.

I think the other reason - well there's two other reasons, I think. Tony Abbott has addressed this parliament with the - sort of the objective to destroy it early on. That hasn't happened. But that sort of aggressive no to opposition - no to everything that comes up, real opposition-style politics, so he's been very effective in sort of driving the perception that there's some sorta chaos going on in the Parliament. I think at the Government level, and this may be partly a reflection of some of the individuals or it might be just their being wary of the hung nature of a parliament, but they haven't marketed a lot of their products very well. And there's some very effective long-term policy initiatives in this parliament, more than I've seen in any one parliament that I've ever been in, whether it be Gonski, NDIS, the Murray-Darling, the National Broadband Network, some of the renewable energy/carbon pricing arrangements - very successful, but long term in their nature. The beneficiaries of a lot of these programs aren't going to be by September 14; they're going to be probably in two, five, 10, 20, 50 years' time. And I think that's shown an effective parliament, even though the Government may not have been able to market some of those things very effectively.

EMMA ALBERICI: So given the achievements you've just listed, how do you feel personally to know that potentially by the end of this year so many of those things you fought to achieve during this parliament might well be undone by Tony Abbott?

TONY WINDSOR: Well, let's wait and see. Obviously a lot of that depends on the makeup of the Senate. And I don't think the general public are missing that either. I think the last thing that Australia needs is a landslide to one political persuasion or the other. And we've seen - and we saw the demise of John Howard because a rare moment in time, in history he achieved the balance - the balance in both houses. So if in fact - say the NBN or Gonski, for instance - if Tony Abbott is elected, he'll have to make those changes in the Senate. I think the general public will apply some pressure in some of those areas and they'll potentially have a rethink, if in fact they are elected in September.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now one of the constants in this parliament has been leadership speculation that never seems to go away. Do you think the matter's settled this time?

TONY WINDSOR: No, and I saw a similar thing in the first hung parliament I was in. There was always pressure on Nick Greiner. Bob Carr was the Opposition Leader. He was the Tony Abbott in those days. He wasn't all that far away from Tony Abbott in style either. So it's sort of a rerun of an old movie in a sense. But, no, it's been a very destructive force for the Labor Party. And here we are now, still talking about whether Kevin Rudd's going to run or he's not going to run or whether the Prime Minister'll step down. I don't get too involved in that, but the feeling I get is it's more a media storm than anything else. I think the current prime minister'll probably go to the next election. But I've been wrong before. I thought we'd have some sort of no-confidence vote from Tony Abbott every second week, but we haven't had one yet. And every time they say Kevin Rudd's coming down the street, he doesn't arrive. So, I'll welcome the car when it gets there.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now, the polls have consistently shown that Kevin Rudd is more popular than Julia Gillard. Why do you think that's so?

TONY WINDSOR: Well polls are odd animals. Kevin Rudd's a very personable sort of a person. He's good in shopping centres and those sorts of thing. He's got a sort of an easy-going nature, I guess, and that appeals to some people. It doesn't seem to appeal to the majority of his caucus members though because they tend to remember the old days and the different stories you hear about the way he practised industrial relations within the Government - slightly different to how he'd preach it outside the Government. And I think the Prime Minister to her credit - and I've seen this on a personal basis. I'm not trying to run an ad for the Prime Minister, but I think she actually practices industrial relations within the Prime Minister's and other offices, rather than just preaches it. So those sorts of things have an impact on the relationships that people develop.

I think probably the Prime Minister has suffered a little bit too by the Abbott "No, no, no" stuff and she probably does come across - she'll criticise me for this in some sense - but does come across a bit wooden on television too, I think, which - people pick up messages. I always used to - I said to Peter Costello one time that he had an attack of Crean's Disease. (Inaudible). But people do pick up images, perceptions from you as you look and both those people are very decent people, but they just happen to have different smirks on their faces and people were interpreting the smirks as being something that they weren't in reality. And none of us can help that. And I think we all suffer from it to a certain degree and I think the Prime Minister probably suffered from it somewhat as well.

EMMA ALBERICI: You've just spent some time in your electorate. I'm interested to know how the Prime Minister's gender politics of last week was received by the people of New England.

TONY WINDSOR: Didn't get a lot of feedback, but I don't think it was received terribly well. I think it was seen - many others have said this as well - that it was seen as a bit constructed. And I don't think it went over that well at all. I thought the Howard Sattler saga was an absolute disgrace and we were inundated with people coming into the office and anywhere I went, people wanted to raise that issue. They were disgusted with it and I think there's a real lack - and I think this parliament and the internet have caused it, whether it be in the Army or in other - in politics. There's a real lack of respect - if not for the person, for the office. And I think we've got to be very wary of that in a democratic process, that we just don't prey on some of these things. We've got to respect people even if we mightn't like them or we'd rather see someone else in their particular position. Democracy is something that's very fragile, it's very precious. It's an incredible thing to have and we're very, very lucky to have that. And if we start to trash the brand and use some of these outrunners like Howard Sattler and Hadley and those people, Alan Jones, to start to trash the brand of the construction of our system, the institution, I think we all run a long-term risk. There might - people might get some short-term political kudos out of it or make some progress politically, but long term I think it weakens the structure. And I think that's had as much to do with the way in which the general public are viewing our parliament as anything else. It's the conduct of people and some of the commentators to those people and being used by some of the political players as well that's actually caused some real problems in the way in which people look at our parliamentary system.

EMMA ALBERICI: Julia Gillard has accused Tony Abbott of a pattern of behaviour that she says would lead to a lack of respect for women littered throughout all of his policy documents. Is there any truth to what she said?

TONY WINDSOR: Well I don't - I don't see that. I have a certain view of Tony Abbott, but I don't see that in those words. I think he's a very aggressive politician. I think he would've been hopeless in a hung parliament, absolutely hopeless because of that aggression. It's his natural style not to be a negotiator. Julia Gillard has that capacity and I think she's done it extremely well. Now that - people might say, "Oh, it's not reflected in the polls." The dealings of the hung parliament, a lot of it is behind the scenes, it is working with individuals - crossbenchers and others in terms of the processes. And I think she's done an extraordinary job to be able to get through that. It was too much for Nick Greiner. His own people turned on him halfway through and John Fahey came in in the New South Wales hung parliament. I saw a good premier eaten up by the process then. This parliament has been able to see its way through to the full term, and that's as much to her credit as anybody else and it's the capacity to have negotiated a way through that. Anthony Albanese as well - he's been I'd imagine invaluable to the Prime Minister in relation to various discussions and many of the other ministers have been very, very good to deal with. But I think Tony would've struggled and probably on his occasional Sundays off he might say, "I'm glad I didn't get that. I'd rather have the majority next time than the minority last time."

EMMA ALBERICI: Now Barnaby Joyce says that when you decided to side with Labor and the Greens, people became extremely disillusioned - and these are his words: "They felt that they'd been picked up by a political bus, the philosophical bus, and taken to another church to worship at."

TONY WINDSOR: (Laughs) Well that's one of Barnaby's riddles, isn't it? People have a view. There was a 50/50 split and I didn't ask for the hung parliament.

EMMA ALBERICI: Do you still consider yourself a conservative?

TONY WINDSOR: Well I don't put myself in any box. What is a conservative these days? What is a liberal? What's the difference? I don't put myself in any box. I tend to - I think I'm pragmatic. I look at the issue before me. What's the best thing for the people I represent? But I do and I have since I've been in any parliament tended to want to look further out than the next election. Now if people make judgments on that and say, "Well, we wanted you to do something short term," well, you know, elect someone else. If that's what you want, I'm not that person. I'd rather be in a parliament that's trying to do something about long-term issues like the Murray-Darling, like NBN - incredible for this century, incredible. And here we are having this crazy debate whether NBN's too dear, too cheap, not good enough. You talk to anybody globally, we've gotta go down that track. Climate change will arrive. Whether this parliament does something about - and I congratulate Greg Combet for having a go at this. I'm willing to die at the political alter on that issue. I believe it is happening. I think - and I'm a farmer. Why would farmers turn on this issue if in fact it could be one of the architects of their own - very demise in the Murray-Darling Basin? Why would you do that? Because a lot of them are actually listening to the no campaign of the doomsdayers. Why wouldn't you take out risk insurance on this? Why wouldn't you say, "Let's do something about this. Let's try and minimise the chances. Let's try to encourage some of the technologies that actually accumulate moisture in the soil," all of those things, and actually try and take the risk profile out of it. And if it does occur, well you've minimised the danger. If it doesn't occur, well you're in a far better position in a productive sense and you may have done some good for the soils and the air we breathe and all those sorts of things. So if that's the church that Barnaby wants to be in, I don't wanna go to that one because I think that's last century's church and the bricks and mortar are starting to get a bit weak.

EMMA ALBERICI: He also said today that the Government was hanging you out to dry over the water trigger legislation. Now you've long been championing that particular cause. Is he right and are you confident that it will get through this parliament?

TONY WINDSOR: Yes, it will get through. And if anybody's hanging it out to dry, it's the Coalition and some of the associates. The Government and the Greens, to their credit - the Government and the Greens - they'll make sure this gets through the parliament and even if the Coalition - and they'll come out the end and say they've voted for it, even though every word in their speeches has been arguing against it.

EMMA ALBERICI: We have to leave it there. Tony Windsor, thanks very much for taking time out of a very busy night in the Parliament to speak to us.

TONY WINDSOR: OK. Thanks very much, Emma.