Cory Bernardi could leave the Senate altogether after announcing this week he was deregistering his Australian Conservatives party after its poor showing at the federal election.
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"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."
There have been suggestions Senator Bernardi might return to the Liberal Party, a party he left in 2017 to launch his own Australian Conservatives amid concerns the government was veering too far to the left.
But the senator says he hasn't had a conversation with the South Australian division of the Liberal party.
Senator Bernardi cited his party's poor election result as behind his reason to deregister, saying his supporters flocked back to the Liberals when Scott Morrison succeeded Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.
The Liberal Party will reap an extra seat in the upper house if the 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.
Australian Associated Press
