THE latest round of speculation about Tony Windsor running at the next federal election made headlines this week, prompted by comments he made on Twitter.
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But the man himself was hosing down expectations yesterday.
“I have not made a firm decision one way or the other, so there’s really no change in what my view was two months ago,” Tony Windsor said, when asked by the Times yesterday about the latest round of speculation.
“I keep getting people that ring me up and say ‘What are you doing, are you thinking about it?’ and I say ’Yes I am’, and that becomes the story. I’d be lying to say I’m not thinking about it.
“But that’s it in a nutshell.”
This is the third time this year that reports have emerged about Mr Windsor running at the next election.
On May 5, The Inverell Times reported Mr Windsor talking about the possibility of a return to Parliament when the federal government appeared poised to water down the water trigger, as part of the decision making process surrounding the Shenhua coal mine on the Liverpool Plains.
Mr Windsor described the mine development as a politically one-way process.
Two months later, in early July, after the government approved the mine, Mr Windsor told the Times he held deep concerns for the region. His concern for the electorate had its origins in the fact that his interest in politics understandably remained strong into his retirement.
It was at this time that national media showed interest in the story.
Then this week there was more speculation, prompted by social media.
“Where this latest wave of interest has come from is, I put out a tweet, I think it was to one of the Liberals actually, yeah it was. It was Ewen Jones.
"I said I was going to be down in Canberra for a sitting week to make an announcement, and I’d go and have a cup of coffee with him.
“He could shout. Or something like that,” Mr Windsor said.
“(Rob) Oakeshott was in on the same Twitter stream. So from that came, a - well he’s going to make an announcement and, b – he’s going to talk to Oakeshott about it.”
I guess some will say ‘He’s playing with Joyce’s mind’, or he’s doing this or he’s doing that, but I’m not doing anything really,
- Tony Windsor
On Wednesday Mr Windsor told The Sydney Morning Herald there was a greater than 50 per cent chance that he would run at the next election, prompting the media reporting.
Yesterday he told The Times there was no doubt he was considering a return, nor that people would make of it what they liked.
“I guess some will say ‘He’s playing with Joyce’s mind’, or he’s doing this or he’s doing that, but I’m not doing anything really,” he said.
“I put in my own book that I hadn’t written off having another go at politics because I’m still interested in what’s happening, and I’m absolutely shocked with some of the stuff that’s happening,” Mr Windsor said.
