I might be a stalwart, but I'm not a kingmaker.

I don't believe that knifing and that sort of terminology is applicable to myself, but I try to the very best of my ability to be as honest as I can with my colleagues and with the electorate at large.

Things like Kitchen Cabinet, I'm not sure they necessarily tell the Australian people whether you have judgement, whether you have discernment, whether you have intellectual acuity, whether you are able to develop policy, whether you are able to represent individual cases to the highest levels of government successfully and in a manner that actually achieves outcomes.

I think the issue of marriage is a vitally important issue on which I would campaign heavily.

I might be a stalwart, but I'm not a kingmaker.

I've always enjoyed mixing and mingling with the Tasmanian community and that's, if you like, the bread and butter of politics. And from my perspective, it's meant more time at home, which I also enjoy and it's also meant the greater interaction with the Tasmanian community. And it's also given me freedom to speak out.

Am I conservative? Yes, I am. I would have thought conservative is very much middle of the road, representative of the aspirational values of the Australian people. The extreme right has connotations with it that I would never seek to identify with.