Tasmanian upper house election 2021: Nick Duigan casts a Liberal line for Windermere

"It's been one of those things that I have had rolling around in the back of my mind for probably 10 years," he said.

It was only thanks to a COVID-enforced stay at home in Tasmania for the entirety of 2020 that he decided to take the next step.

"I thought, this is going to be hard, I'm going to be pining for the Barrier Reef or the Kimberley or something, I'm going to go stir crazy. I actually found that the opposite was true. I actually became much more engaged than I had been previously in what was going on at home," Mr Duigan.

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Then came some "preliminary discussions" with Liberal party people, and although he counts deputy premier Jeremy Rockliff among this close friends, he insists there was no tap on the shoulder to run for Windermere.

The "moment" arrived when he was watching his daughter compete in the Launceston and Henley Regatta on the Tamar in February. Duigan saw the rescue of another competitor who had become stuck in the mud as the tide receded. He says this was when he decided to run for the Liberals, to "do something" about the river.

Like Jo Palmer in Rosevears, the Liberals have put their faith in a Tasmanian television personality to partially shift the balance in the upper house.

Mr Duigan has co-hosted Hook, Line & Sinker for over 20 years under his own production company, but how does this prepare him for the role of scrutinising legislation, particularly when it comes from his own party?

He points to his business experience in wrangling advertisers for TV and delivering on promises.

"Often they're big national companies, like Mitsubishi, or Isuzu, Yamaha, you have to do the things that you say you're going to do otherwise you get dropped like a stone," Mr Duigan said. "That's really instructive in the political sense too - not making silly promises, and delivering what you'll say you'll deliver.

"While I don't have legislative experience, I don't have council experience, what I do have is a really well-rounded suite of skills."

The Legislative Council will, as always, play a crucial role in the next term of government with an array of complex legislation to be sent its way, including the delayed electoral donation reforms.

Mr Duigan said he was most looking forward to participating in this particular process.

"I think it's critically important that we have transparency in this space. As you travel around the electorate and talk to people, you do find some people who are disaffected and disinterested and say, oh look, you're just paid for, you're a paid mouthpiece," he said.

"I think having real, genuine transparency in that space is a good thing. It's better for our democracy."

Like most party-aligned candidates, he disputes the claim that the upper house must be majority-independent to operate effectively by arguing that independents usually positioned themselves to the left or right anyway, and that he offers a voice in the partyroom.

But the Liberal partyroom contains some fairly staunch political operatives.

"I'm going into this process with my first reaction being to listen, but I'm not afraid of prosecuting an argument as well," Mr Duigan said.

During his travels, Mr Duigan has seen boats sitting on mud in other tidal estuaries. But he believes the kanamaluka/Tamar's mud has "choked the system" worse than most due to past alterations to the catchment.

The Liberals have promised a dredging program, and while he welcomes the initial move, he also agrees that it's a stop-gap measure while longer-term solutions are found.

Marine health has been thrust into the election campaign with the release of Richard Flanagan's book on issues with Tasmania's salmon industry. So where does Mr Duigan stand on salmon farms?

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"I'm not a fan of salmon farms in places where people recreate, I'm not a fan of that, and I think for the salmon industry, getting social license is becoming more difficult," he said. "I think the salmon industry probably needs to be focusing more on looking at taking its operations offshore ... away from where people are."

Recreational fishing groups have also been demanding his position on the Lake Malbena tourism proposal and wilderness development more generally. Mr Duigan said he was happy to meet with them, and accepted that helicopter access over highland lakes would have "an impact", although he disputed the scale of this impact.

"Here in Tassie, we have something very special. I think everyone recognises that. It's special for some of those reasons, there is nobody there, there are no helicopters buzzing around," Mr Duigan said.

"I think we need to tread carefully. The government understands that it's not tourism at any cost, that's not what we're about in Tasmania."

But it was not an issue he was hearing from voters in Windmere, he said.

Health, housing and job opportunities were comfortably topping that list.