After holding the seat for more than a decade, Mr Windsor retired in 2013 but his concern for the future, regionally and nationally, brought him back.

Mr Windsor is standing on five major issues that “tie into the next generation”: the National Broadband Network, Gonski education funding, climate change and renewable energy, stopping the Liverpool Plains mines and establishing a federal anti-corruption commission.

“In my political lifetime, I’ve never seen a set of circumstances where the major issues locally are the major issues nationally,” he said.

His position is in “stark contrast” to his political rival, Deputy Prime Minister and New England MP Barnaby Joyce.

“He stood beside Abbott when he said the NBN was just about downloading more movies; he thinks climate change is crap; to those guys Gonski is just throwing money at education,” Mr Windsor said.

“Unless we get these things right, the future of Tony Windsor and Barnaby Joyce will be irrelevant.”

Many questioned Mr Windsor’s decision to side with Labor in 2010 and asked what he would do if the situation arose again.

“If there was another hung parliament, I’d remain independent,” he said.

When he sided with the Liberals in the NSW government in 1991, Mr Windsor was “called a Liberal stooge for years”.

“Now I’m called a Labor stooge, so I think that means I’m an independent,” he said.

Education

THE Coalition government’s backflip on the needs-based Gonski funding was a big motivator in Mr Windsor’s return to politics.

The Gonski report recommended billions of dollars in additional funding for schools until 2019, to which both governments committed in 2013.

The government now says it would support the reforms until only 2017, meaning New England schools would miss out on $28 million over two years.

Mr Windsor said he would fight to restore the full program of funding.

“I had a lot to do with the Gonski funding; I was in the hung parliament,” he said.

“We’ve never had consistent money pumped into schools ... but where it’s been pumped into a school, it actually solves issues.”

Gonski money followed the child who needed the help, rather than the school.

“For the first time in my lifetime, we actually had a formula that was going to work,” he said.

“Tony Abbott’s butchered that, because anything that came out of Gillard’s government was assumed to be bad.”

Coal mines and renewable energy

WHILE the Shenhua Watermark and BHP Caroona “mega mines” on the Liverpool Plains are not in the seat of New England, Tony Windsor said their economical and environmental impacts would rip apart the region.

Mr Windsor said the Agriculture and Water Minister, Mr Joyce, had not done enough to put the issue to bed.

“I’m not anti-mining, all I’m arguing is the decision should be made on scientific risk,” he said.

Mr Windsor was instrumental in pushing for the water-trigger legislation.

“What it does is give an objective view of what is likely to happen if these things go ahead,” he said.

“Normally when you have a coal mine you’ll be granted approval to proceed if you can keep the environmental effects within the perimeter of the mine.

“When you add big volumes of groundwater, there is no way you can guarantee the impact will stop where the mine is.

“CSIRO reckon with their desktop work there’s up to a 30 per cent chance of something going wrong – if that was Chaffey Dam and there was a 30 per cent chance of the wall falling apart, we’d be going berserk.

“Until we know the potential impact on the water resources, we shouldn’t go there at all. It’s got to be based on science – not political science and not who’s got the biggest wallet.

“Mr Joyce is the water minister – he’s done nothing on the bioregional assessment process that was set up and he’s tried to weaken the water trigger over time.”

Mr Windsor said renewable energy was an “extraordinary opportunity” for New England that would “create another layer of jobs”.

Jobs and infrastructure 

“DO IT once, do it right and do it with fibre” has been Mr Windsor’s call to arms over the government’s handling of the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Mr Windsor said the NBN “should never have been made political”.

“Both sides of politics should have agreed to do something for the longer-term good, but they’ve agreed to have a brawl,” he said.

“Country people will be the victims – we’ll end up with second-class technology.

“This thing has never been about cost, it’s always been about politics.

“We need people in there to fight for the best system. We’ve had this handbrake on fibre because Labor introduced it, therefore it’s got to be wrong.”

Along with traditional renewable energy, New England had a big opportunity to turn its waste into a business opportunity, Mr Windsor said.

“There’s the biodigester going on at the Inverell meat processor, which will divorce it from the grid so it has control of its utility cost,” he said.

“That means their production costs go down – it could be up to 25 per cent – so they become the most competitive in their industry and they’ll employ more people.”