Peta Credlin has hit back at "unnamed sources" who dogged her final months in Canberra by suggesting cabinet ministers and journalists intimidated by her didn't deserve their jobs.

Speaking at the Women of the Future Awards in Sydney on Tuesday night, former prime minister Tony Abbott's chief-of-staff spoke candidly about the "bloody tough" time she had experienced as a senior woman in Australian politics over the past decade.

In her first in-depth public speaking appearance, Ms Credlin said she "refused to be defined by insider gossip from unnamed sources when no one has the guts to put their name to it".

"And if you're a cabinet minister or a journalist and you're intimidated by the chief-of-staff of the prime minister then maybe you don't deserve your job," Ms Credlin said.

The blistering comments came after days of speculation that the leadership coup that ended Mr Abbott's prime ministership was in part due to his chief-of-staff's acrimonious relationship with members of the Coalition backbench and the cabinet.

In Monday night's episode of ABC's Four Corners, former Liberal senator Amanda Vanstone said "people felt she was more of a doorway blocking off access to the prime minister rather than a bridge".

But Ms Credlin told attendees at the Australian Women's Weekly event at the Art Gallery of NSW: "If I wasn't strong, determined, controlling and got them into government, from opposition I might add, then I would be weak and not up to it and should have to go and [need to be] replaced.

"You will want to have women like me in politics. You will want to have women like me sitting in power," she said.

"If I was a guy, I wouldn't be bossy, I'd be strong.

"If I was a guy I wouldn't be a micromanager, I'd be across my brief, or across the detail."

Speculation that Ms Credlin had been pursuing a career as a federal MP dogged her career, but on Tuesday night she met those rumours head on.

"I am not going to run for politics. It has been said about me for 15 years. I am not. I want to move on with my life and do something where I get my own voice," she said.

Ms Credlin briefly touched on her final week in politics following Mr Abbott's ousting, saying it had been especially tough for her mother and her family.

But now that she was "thoroughly emancipated" she would not turn on those who had publicly attacked her character, nor those who replaced her and her boss.

"I am not going to be one of those people who go out and kick the Liberal Party and kick the new Prime Minister on their way out. I think that is undignified," she said.