To end 2020, The Examiner's ADAM HOLMES sat down with Ms Archer.

Read Part 1 of the interview here, which includes discussions on employment, industrial relations, JobSeeker rate and more on the cashless welfare card decision.

- blowback from the cashless welfare decision

- voting against other government policy

- the proposed Integrity Commission

- access to healthcare in Bass

- social housing and the City Deal

AH: Would the blowback from your cashless welfare stance discourage you from speaking out in the future? Does it make you more determined to vote against government policy?

BA: It is important to recognise that I was elected as part of a team. I'm elected under that brand. People can understand that you're a Liberal or Labor or independent.

For me, that's about those values. I am a Liberal because I believe in the intrinsic values that underpin the party. A "small L liberal", if you like. But the other thing that attracts me to our party - and I'm pretty woke, I could sit on either side probably - is those values and the fact that we do have the capacity to exercise our vote without being disendorsed.

People say to me, 'why wouldn't you run as an independent?' Because there's a lot of independents that have maybe underlying Liberal values, or underlying Labor values, but they choose to run as an independent. It's very hard to do anything when you're not in government.

I don't want to be a politician, I don't set out to be a politician. I want to represent my community, it's why I went into local government, it's why I do this. You don't do it for your health. There's a lot of things that you put aside to do it. It is hard to take a stand against your own team's policy. But I'm not here to keep the seat warm.

By extension, it's not a bad thing for the government. If I'm representing my community, I assume they want me to keep doing that.

AH: There's other government policy that you'd likely disagree with. You spoke about a lack of evidence for cashless welfare, but is there evidence for the Family Court-Federal Court merger? Would you vote against that?

BA: It's certainly something that I have consulted pretty widely on, and as is always the case with these things, there are divergent views.

The Family Court system - there are a range of challenges. And I think what we saw recently with the equal shared parental responsibility issue that Mr Perrett raised, it's one part of a whole lot of parts that are not necessarily working well together. It's very difficult to know, if you pull one lever, what the other consequences might be.

We're currently doing an inquiry into domestic and family violence, for example some of the evidence we've heard there - again - a diversity of views as to what's going to be the right approach.

I can see both sides of the argument with the Federal and Family Court, I think it is important that we maintain the level of Family Law specialisation, so that's key. How you do that - whether you can still do that within a merged system - and some people say 'yes you can', there's a lot of those things to consider.

I guess the point is whatever the legislation is - and I think this is where we landed with cashless welfare - I worked on that for months, I consulted, I had briefings with the minister, I sought information about the banking product that they're trying to develop, you've got to get all the information. The challenge is that there is always divergent views.

The wider challenge that we've seen, and the frustrating challenge to me, that came out of the cashless welfare issue, you've got to sort out what the actual issues are, and then unfortunately you seem to have to work through the politics as well. That's awful really, because what we saw with cashless welfare, is that you try to do the right thing. I made a really considered, ethical choice. I can't guarantee that it's going to be the right choice or the choice that suits everyone, or that timing-wise it's going to do x, y, z. I talk about the timing - if it had been a week earlier, it might have fallen over.

That cashless welfare issue, if I had said nothing, and I had done what you would expect me to do, which is to vote with the government.

AH: Like (Braddon MHR) Gavin Pearce?

BA: Nobody is filling Gavin's inbox with hate. Nobody is emailing the other 60 members of the government who didn't say anything and voted in favour of it.

It is politics in its purest sense that will get in the way. We want to see trust in government, we want to see integrity, we want to see ethical decision-making. I don't know how we do that without stepping a little way back from politics.

I have been an elected member of various types for quite a while, and I would like to continue to do that for a while more. But I have to look at myself in the mirror every day, and I'll make my decision on that basis.

AH: You stated you wanted to hear a wide range of views on the proposed Integrity Commission, where is that at?

BA: I've been working closely with (Indi Independent MHR) Helen Haines, continuing to talk with her. I had a visit from Transparency International representatives when I was in Canberra. I'm consulting widely.

AH: What aspects of Ms Haines' proposal would you like to see in the government's?

BA: There is a degree of crossover between her proposal and the government's, so I'm hopeful that we can find a bit of middle ground.

I have my own views in relation to, again, you've got to get the balance right that it is an Integrity Commission as opposed to an Anti-Corruption Commision. It can do both, but I think the integrity side is where we need to focus our work because we want to drive ethical decision-making, we want to drive integrity and trust.

Our Integrity Commission in Tasmania is pretty good in the way it manages that. It could probably do with more resources, and they are under-resourced for their level of work.

AH: Should it have public hearings for MPs?

BA: Any public hearings, regardless of who they are, have to balanced with principles of natural justice and fairness. I don't think it matters who the people are, and my view is - and this is where there is some divergence between the government and Helen's bill - is that everybody should be treated in the same way. I don't think we should be looking at law enforcement in one way, and public servants in another way.

Public hearings should always pass a public interest test, and people must of course be afforded natural justice.

AH: Access to health services remains a problem in Bass. Has anything changed?

BA: I have been working for 18 months now, one of the first meetings with Health Minister Greg Hunt down here was around the difficulty to have access to GPs. The Modified Monash Model system of classification creates issues for some practices in terms of the incentives that are available to them in terms of the recruitment and retention of doctors.

Within Launceston, we have practices like Mowbray, Northern Suburbs, Prospect, certainly in the case of Mowbray, a low socio-economic area, concentrated levels of disadvantage, migrant population, chronic health needs, it's very difficult for them to attract and maintain GPs. But they're not getting incentivised under the rural-regional Modified Monash Model.

The minister has agreed to establish a specific fund for Northern Tasmania to address this issue. It'll be administered by Primary Health Tasmania, but these practices will be able to access funding to address some of those issues in terms of incentivising recruitment and retention of GPs.

AH: Does that mean better access to GPs in the long run?

BA: In the case of Mowbray for example, it's a little bit economies of scale. You can have more doctors and you can see more patients, you're often better able to bulk bill as well.

AH: What more can be done to increase social housing?

BA: We have waived the state government's debt and with that comes an expectation that they will build more social housing. There was a clear expectation within that agreement with benchmarks for them to build more social housing.

AH: You'd like to see the state government do more?

BA: I think we'd all like to see more social and affordable housing. We know there are far too many people who have insecure, unaffordable or no housing.

AH: What's next for the Launceston City Deal?

BA: We still have a focus on the Tamar River, we have the Northern Suburbs hub and the Albert Hall coming in, UTAS, City Heart transformation. There are other bits and pieces. The entrepreneurship program that Van Diemen Project has been doing, that's part of the City Deal, for example.