Does this stack up? Perhaps not.

We would argue Mr Windsor has grown his majority by winning more votes off the ALP than he has ever taken off The Nationals.

This time around he grew his first preference vote to 62.25 per cent of all votes cast – an increase of 5.5 per cent.

The Nationals candidate, Tim Coates, was marginally down (-.34 per cent) on the primary vote recorded by Phil Betts in 2007.

Coates collected 25.2 per cent of the primaries.

On a two-party preferred basis Mr Windsor scored 71.64 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Coates’ 28.36 per cent.

There was a slight swing of 2.77 per cent towards The Nationals, thanks to the collapse of the ALP vote, which slipped into single digits to 8 per cent for the first time.

In 1998, the last election before the seat of New England went to the independent, the figures were fascinating.

The Nationals’ Stuart St Clair – who suffered a first preference swing of 29.39 per cent against himself – only collected 31.11 per cent of the primary vote.

This was less than 10 per cent more than the ALP candidate who took home almost 23 per cent of the primary vote.

The principal independent candidate, Graham Nuttall – who now works for Mr Windsor – scored 9.06 per cent of the primary vote; 1 per cent more than the ALP won in the September 1 election.

With The Nationals’ primary vote only 5.9 per cent down on what it was in 1988 it is apparent that the bulk of the votes that Mr Windsor has collected have come from disenchanted ALP supporters, not frustrated former voters for The Nationals.

The current ALP vote is down 15 per cent on 1988.

It would appear, given he has reduced the local ALP vote to a “rump”, that Mr Windsor may best represent his electorate by backing Julia Gillard after all.