Power of the independents: Tony Windsor

The last federal parliament may represent a high water mark for independents, in terms of both numbers and influence, for the foreseeable future.

But one of the most prominent, Tony Windsor, believes some will keep their seats and others could emerge.

Superficially, there doesn't seem any common thread linking successful independents, past and present, in the lower house.

Ted Mack, the first of the modern independents, won an inner Sydney seat that the Liberals took for granted. The late Peter Andren held a NSW regional seat that every major party had won at some point.

In the last parliament, there was Bob Katter (technically now a member of his own party) in outback Queensland, Rob Oakeshott in what was normally the Nationals' seat of Lyne on the NSW north coast and Andrew Wilkie, who won Denison in Hobart, which Labor and the Greens were expected to scrap over.

Mr Windsor, who's retiring undefeated after 12 years in New England, traditionally a jewel in the Nationals' crown, told AAP that he expected Katter and Wilkie to win again.

He wouldn't be surprised if a new independent emerges - Cathy McGowan, who's running against Liberal Sophie Mirabella in the super-safe coalition seat of Indi in northern Victoria.

He said Ms McGowan was a local with a long record of effective community and farm work; and it was in safe major party seats, rather than marginals, that independents had their best chance.

One essential was to really care about the constituency.

Mr Windsor said he wasn't suggesting major party MPs didn't care about their constituents. But they usually had wider ambitions and had to put the interests of their party first.

"No-one is quite like Bob (Katter) and no-one has a greater regard for his constituents," he said of the maverick Queenslander with whom he often disagreed.

The independents generally did very nicely for their constituents over the past three years, as they exercised unprecedented influence over a minority Labor government.

But Mr Windsor says even with a majority government, independents can deliver more for their electorates than major party MPs.

He uses his own seat to illustrate his point.

When he first won New England in 2001 - in the middle of the Howard era - the furious Nationals poured money into it to try to "buy" it back.

And when Labor came back to power in 2007, it also looked after the seat because it much preferred an independent to a National there.

For all his talking up of independents, however, Mr Windsor expects New England will now go back to the Nationals via Barnaby Joyce, that the election will be polarising, and "regional Australia will be ignored again".