he former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi announced last week he would deregister his Australian Conservatives party after its disappointing election result.
The South Australian says he will seek advice, but suspects he will now sit as an independent in the upper house.
"The principle is right, not to seek to rejoin them (the Liberals)," he told Sky News.
"I left the party to do something; I'm a big boy, I can wear the consequence of the decision.
"It would just open a whole bunch of new bad blood, I suspect, with a bunch of people."
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Senator Bernardi left the Liberals in 2017 to launch Australian Conservatives amid concerns the government was veering too far to the political left.
He said last week his supporters had flocked back to the coalition after Scott Morrison took the top job from Malcolm Turnbull.
The senator could leave the Senate altogether after announcing he was deregistering his Australian Conservatives party.
Australian Senator Cory Bernardi
AAP
"It might be best for me to leave parliament in the next six months," Senator Bernardi told Sky News on Friday.
"I'm really unresolved."
He says by June next year he will have turned 50 and been in the parliament for 14 years.
"I think that is a pretty good time to consider what contribution you want to make going forward."
The Liberal Party will reap an extra seat in the upper house if Senator Bernardi bows out of politics before his term expires in mid-2022.
The Liberals would have the right to fill the casual vacancy that would create as he was elected under the party's banner.
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