Interview with Tony Windsor
Transcribed by Liam Dudgeon
6th April, 2016
Interview occurred on 16th March
“L” denotes Liam, and “N” denotes Nick, the interviewers.
L: We just wanted to start this interview by asking what made you decide to come back and re-contest the seat of New England?
Windsor: Well I always loved the work, and I had in mind for sometime and I was umming and ahhing if I would or not, but I heard David Morrison, the Australian of the Year back in January make a comment about the standard you walk past is the standard you accept and it sort of hit a nerve with me. There was a number of thing happening within the Electorate and Regional Australia that I didn’t think were acceptable, or were at worst, second-class standards in terms of some of the things that were happening. After a discussion with my wife, as to whether she was prepared to cop some of the flack as well, we decided to go ahead and re-contest the seat.
N: Bit of a change up for this question, what is your stance on marriage equality?
Windsor: Personally I don’t have any issues with it at all, I believe that marriage equality is the way to go, but there is a bit of a political issue here as well that historically, and I’ve been in parliament for 22 years, on conscience votes, what I always did, rather than what the members of parties is vote with their own conscience, as an independent, every vote is a conscience vote, not just the ones on moral and other issues. So what I always did, and I think I have maintained this, is try and represent the conscience of the electorate, and in that sense, I’d either participate in the plebiscite they are talking about, or survey the electorate. My guess, not having surveyed the electorate of course, is that the electorate would be acceptable to same-sex marriage now, where as six or seven years ago it may not have been.
L: What are your thoughts on Barnaby Joyce saying the situation with the Shen Hua Watermark Coal mine is a matter for state politics and shouldn’t be having an effect on this federal election?
Windsor: Well I think it’s quite ridiculous to actually say that, and as water minister at the federal level he should know, because he’s tried to water it down or vote it out on a couple of occasions, that the Water Trigger, under the Water Protection, Biodiversity and Conservation Act is actually a federal act, and allows the federal government to look at extractive industries, where they are likely or possibly going to have an impact on water resources. So if he is saying that, he is firstly ignorant of the reality of federal politics. Now he may be saying that the water trigger has been looked at, it has been tampered with, and Mr. Joyce has done very little to actually progress some of the objective scientific work that was underway in the hung parliament, what’s called a Bioregional Assessment, which absolutely gives you an independent scientific overview of what the landscape is like to absorb, and what risks are there in terms of the water resource. Now it’s very specific to water, and it doesn’t apply to other environmental aspects such as noise or dust, its water, he’s the water minister, and in my view he should have done a lot more as the local minister to make sure the objective science rather than state based politics.
N: On the topic of Barnaby Joyce, what do you believe sets you apart from Barnaby Joyce?
Windsor: Well I am prepared to fight for the electorate. I think that’s one of the things I have noticed in my years out of politics, that we don’t have fighters in our parliaments anymore, in our country seats. The National party for instance, and I know this is a state matter but it is a classic example of what’s not happening, and should be happening. The current state government is trying to amalgamate, or forcefully amalgamate, Guyra Councils and Walcha councils with other councils. Irrespective of peoples views on amalgamation etc, it is almost irrelevant in terms of the argument, but the National Party want to force their own people to devour other people who they say they represent, we saw it in Walcha over the weekend, we saw Members of Parliament standing up defending their community that they say they can sit at the table. Now they will say about independents that you don’t sit at the table, you don’t get anything done, well I’d suggest that they live at the table, they are in the government, that they should stop this sort of activity. Richard Torbay, when he was the independent in your area, and Peter Draper, when he was the independent for the southern part of the electorate, for Tamworth, would never have allowed this sort of nonsense to take place.
N: We’re going back a few years on this one, and I know a lot of student here are curious about this one, why did you choose to support the Gillard government?
Windsor: Well that’s a very long story, and if you have 17 days I’m quite willing to tell you [laughing].
Essentially, we were, when I say we, Rob Oakeshott and myself, were asked to make a decision because the numbers were locked together in terms of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. One of the things that was in that decision making criteria, and we did spend 17 days seriously looking at the two individuals and the commitments, but one of those things was the capacity to negotiate in very difficult circumstances for any Prime Minister, and it was pretty obvious that Julia Gillard had that capacity, and Tony Abbott didn’t. We saw even in the latest book that was released on him that even as recently as last September hadn’t bothered to consult and negotiate with the cross-benchers in the current senate, so if he couldn’t do it in the Senate, he definitely wasn’t going to do it terribly well in the House of Representatives. Now over and above that, when I went to the polls in 2010, two of the issues that I stood on, that I was elected by the people on, was the National Broadband Network, and climate change, renewable energy and drought policy were all built in to that particular argument. Julia Gillard was prepared to deliver on both of us, and hence Armidale is one of the few places in Australia that has got fully fiber-to-the-premise, world class, fully top standard stuff, there again, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept, and the second one was climate change as I said. Climate change, NBN, Gillard said she’d do it, Abbott wasn’t interested, climate change was crap to him, NBN was just a waste of money, and the only people that would use it were people who would download videos. I remember him saying that, publicly. So added to that were a whole range of other considerations, I don’t regret that decision at all, I think the electorate did very well out of that particular period, and I think there were some very good policies that were put in place, the Gonski policy for one, which they are fighting about now, is a very good policy in my view
L: Barnaby Joyce said just after you announced that you’ve ended up as the Candidate for the Labor-Greens-Independent Alliance, can you speak to that a little bit?
Windsor: No, I think he’d have to explain that. I’ve always been an independent, in any parliament you have to work, and negotiate and deal with all other members of parliament who all belong to other parties, and I’ve always been able to do that and I look forward to perhaps doing that again. I do notice with some interest that in the last couple of days the Nationals have formed some sort of alliance with the Greens, to wipe out the cross benchers, politics is a funny thing, and I think what comes around goes around, and I think he may well regret those comments.
L: We are all students here, and obviously New England is big electorate for students, what do you think the three biggest issues facing students in todays society are?
Windsor: Well, obviously the cost of education, particularly at university, but also at schools, and at a younger age to you people of course, those younger people in primary school particularly that need a bit of an extra hand to overcome some of their problems, and some of the problems might come from home, some of their various backgrounds or intellectual capacity, but there is a lot of research to suggest that with a bit of special attention can be helped and then become professionals and university students as well. I think in terms of technology as well, the NBN, it’s the roads and railway lines of this century, and gives everybody, including students, the capacity to be anywhere in the world, and actually do business and obtain information or study etc. So I’d see it as being a pretty important issue. And I guess the other issues are all some sort of the social issues that young people have to put up with these days. My youngest son is 24, so I have a bit of an idea what you young people get up to [laughter].
N: Still on the topic of students, what do you think are the three most important political topics for students?
Windsor: Well I am sure you will have a forum there, and rather than me, who was a student at that university, I had a great time there. Rather than me telling you what they are, I’d turn it around and ask what you guys think, and I will be doing that, I know there are forums and things, but I’ll be having a number of town hall meetings, one of them in Armidale where that exact question will be asked, what people actually want for themselves and there is another thing that I can’t elaborate on that gives the whole community across the electorate the capacity to nominate what they want their local member to do, and I’ve tended to work from that perspective, it’s not what I think is necessarily good, it’s what the people think, and my job is to represent what they think, not what I think.
L: Just on your attendance at UNE, do you attribute much of your success to attending this university?
Windsor: Oh, all of it. Any success that I’ve had can be attributed to UNE. I was one of these students that very rarely went to lectures, I wasn’t out on the town because I didn’t have a lot of money in those days, but I used to stay up very late at night copying other peoples notes, and then go to sleep during the day time. I remember turning up to one lecture one day, and the lecturer said to me “I think you’re going to the wrong room” and I said “no no, this is the one I’m going to” and he said “well who are you?” I hadn’t been to one of his lectures since he’d started. [laughter] I’m probably not a good role model in that capacity but I think UNE, and I think it still does it, and I’ve been on the council at UNE in more recent years, I think being in the country, and the comradeship and the fun that people had, makes people better people, for whatever they do, in terms of their life and educational outcomes, and I think that’s pretty important in life.
L: Just a quick follow up question to something you were saying earlier, what are your thoughts on the state of the infrastructure currently in the New England area?
Windsor: Well depending where you are, there was to be an upgrade, and I was able to obtain the money when I was in the hung parliament for the Bolivia Hill, which is the most dangerous part of the New England Highway, which hadn’t been addressed, and also a bypass around Tenterfield, and it’s those sort of things in the lower part of the electorate that there’s been a lot of upgrades in recent years, in terms of the rail system, the various coal mines and other industry groups, but there is always work to do on railway lines and roads, always maintenance and it can always be better. I believe the thing that is going to make the most difference to country people is the National Broadband Network, done correctly, and if you can do it right, do it once, do it right, do it with fibre is the catch cry, if you can do it right, it really turns the paradigm upside down, in terms of location, and it doesn’t matter where you live then, you can be competitive with anyone in the world, and have access to anything anybody in the world has got, and that’s my vision, to have country people being competitive and still living where they love it, in the country.
N: This next one is moving down to Canberra, what are your thoughts on the proposed senate reform bills?
Windsor: I’m not totally up to speed on all of them, and there is no doubt in my mind that they may be changing as we speak, I’m in Inverell at the moment, so I haven’t been following todays politics, there is no doubt in mind, that this is about entrenching the major parties in a two horse race, and the Greens think they perhaps become a third major party. What we are seeing in Australian politics, and it’s perhaps reflected more in the senate than anywhere else, is that nearly 40% of voters are looking for someone else to vote for rather than the major parties. They see the major parties as being traditional, not much different to each other, full of factions and fighting and bickering, and always trying to make the other one look like an idiot. The majority of people in the real world don’t live that way, we tend to try and find the things we agree on and move on things we agree on and leave the decisions aside. Party politics doesn’t do that, and that’s one of the reason I’ve always been an independent. I think in terms of this move on the senate, it’s to eradicate any of the independent voices out there, so that the it’s only the two parties having the arguments. They are more than happy to have six years on and six years off, or whatever the period of time happens to be, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. We’re seeing that play out in America at the moment as well.
L: Alright, one final questions, do you think Barnaby Joyce is correct to call himself the underdog in this electorate?
Windsor: Ah well, he is quite at liberty to call himself anything; I don’t think it matters what you call yourself. But I was a bit surprised actually that a Deputy Prime Minister to actually come out a couple of days after I nominated and a poll came out saying there was a chance I could win, I was pretty surprised he’d even bother to comment, we don’t know when the elections on, we don’t know who the other candidates are, we don’t know where their preferences are going and to sort of say “oh, well I’m the underdog” when he’s the second most powerful person in the nation, in theory at least, I don’t think it’s in practice, but to say that, was to say the least, a little bit weird.
To listen to the actual audio please go to:
