On the evening of August 21, 2010, Rob Oakeshott got drunk. Many of his fellow Australians did, too. It was, after all, election night, and Oakeshott, the independent member for the federal seat of Lyne, on the NSW mid-north coast, had a better excuse than most. He was on track to retain his seat.

Oakeshott woke the next morning, not just with a dry mouth and a headache, but also with the realisation that he was the subject of intense national scrutiny. Overnight, he and his fellow independents, NSW's Tony Windsor and Queensland's Bob Katter, had become kingmakers in a hung Parliament.

But that was the least of his problems. He was also flat broke. He and his wife Sara-Jane were in six-figure debt following a failed business venture, an injury- management business they went into with friends, and which Oakeshott admits they did not know enough about before committing their capital. In 2008, they had been forced to sell the family home and become renters. Oakeshott had financed his 2010 re-election campaign on credit and goodwill.

For the next 17 days, Oakeshott was under extraordinary pressure in his personal life, even as he was being politically courted by Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott and lobbied by billionaires like Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest.

During those weeks, his family's financial situation "continued to weigh heavily on me, more heavily than anything else", Oakeshott writes in his memoir, The Independent Member for Lyne, published next week.

"It meant that there were days during this period when I didn't eat, because I couldn't afford to. My credit cards were maxed out from election spending, and my savings account had hit zero during the final week of August 2010."

Oakeshott's health was also suffering. In press conferences he tried to hide the shaky hands that were later diagnosed as symptoms of hyperthyroidism. And his wife was due to give birth to their fourth child in a few weeks. "It was a crazy situation," Sara-Jane tells Good Weekend. "We always managed to make sure we had food on the table for the kids. There were times we would say, 'How are we going to do this? How will we get to the end of the month?' "

Oakeshott was working deep into the night trying to educate himself on issues ranging from climate-change policy to parliamentary reform. Meanwhile, the third of the "three amigos", Bob Katter, was behaving increasingly strangely, Oakeshott was being lambasted by shock jocks for taking too long to make up his mind, and his kids wanted to know why their all-but-absent father wasn't home for Father's Day.

Suddenly everyone wanted to talk to him - even those within the Labor Party, like Senator Mark Arbib, who were not party to his negotiations with the leader. But taking calls from Arbib was low on his list of priorities, as was coffee with Andrew Forrest, even after Oakeshott's media adviser received a personal call from radio shock jock Alan Jones "encouraging" him to meet with the mining magnate.

"The stuff going on at home was the really important stuff," Oakeshott says now. "That is why I might have seemed flippant. To other people, it was like, 'This is Australia's mining policy.' To me, it was less important than the other stuff going on."

To his critics, Oakeshott was a self-absorbed "precious petal", naive and unrealistic when it came to playing politics at the highest level. A man who betrayed his largely conservative electorate to back a Labor government that turned out to be unpopular and shambolic. To his supporters, his decency and love of family was precisely the reason they wanted him there; he was a normal bloke, a political outsider motivated by good policy rather than grubby politics, a man whose head was not turned by billionaires.

Oakeshott's house on the pleasant outskirts of Port Macquarie is an average suburban brick bungalow, like thousands of others in the "middle Australia" politicians talk about. There are kids' drawings on the fridge, nests of Lego adorning the floors and piles of washing throughout. Oakeshott and his warm, no-nonsense wife wrangle their four freshly-bathed, pyjama-clad children (Ben, 3, Angus, 5, Olivia, 8, and Sophie, 10) into sitting up at the table for a simple dinner of fish and salad. The meal is pleasant chaos - chattering kids and reminders to observe manners.

I am informed I have come on a red-letter day - it is the grand final of My Kitchen Rules, a TV show in which the kids are emotionally invested, particularly as they are rarely allowed to watch television. The girls in particular love cooking, and I chat to Sara-Jane as Oakeshott helps them rustle up haloumi stacks and breaded calamari for our entrée. There is an easy rapport between Oakeshott and Sara-Jane; she supported her husband during his political career but it was clear she wasn't overly invested in it, as some parliamentarians' partners are.

The 44-year-old Oakeshott is relaxed, unshaven and clad in a T-shirt and shorts. He is also very friendly, which is slightly surprising given how scathingly he writes about journalists in his book - describing the press gallery as a "valueless peloton that will lie, deceive and steal to get a story" and decrying the "utter rudeness" of the media pack. He is obviously still wary, asking if I have a copy of the journalistic code of ethics on my person. After the stress and adrenalin of the past three years, he is happily disconnected from politics, he says, a contented house-husband, doing school runs and swimming lessons while Sara-Jane works full-time at a local training company. He does some work for the United Nations Development Program and is considering setting up his own legal practice. He has no plans to go back to politics.

"A lot of people have the perception that I somehow manufactured the situation and was thriving in my 15 minutes of fame," says Oakeshott. He knows he is notorious for the meandering 17-minute speech he gave at the press conference announcing his and Windsor's decision on who they would back into government in 2010. "Staff later told me that there were audible groans from the media representatives each time I moved to a new topic," he recounts in the book. "They didn't want a reason, they just wanted an answer."

Oakeshott was criticised for making it "all about him" when the nation's fate hung in the balance. He makes the point he didn't ask to be put in such a unique position. He disagreed with Abbott on several policy fronts, notably the emissions trading scheme and the national broadband network, but he also found the then opposition leader's style combative and unfocused, and wondered if Abbott was trying to "bovver boy" him into submission.

"His attitude was adversarial and not transactional," Oakeshott says. "This was an environment where negotiation and compromise was a strength, not a weakness ... Tony struggled with it."

Oakeshott says Abbott seemed to expect him to come up with an agreement or a compromise to form government, whereas Oakeshott's attitude was: "I'm the buyer, you're the seller, not the other way around. You have to convince me."

To this day, Oakeshott is unsure whether Abbott was being strategic in not giving away much detail of what he was willing to negotiate on, or whether he was just floundering in the situation.

By contrast, Oakeshott says he found Julia Gillard charming and professional. The pair spoke daily during the 17 days as they prepared drafts of the agreement he and Windsor would eventually sign.

I ask Oakeshott how much of his decision was based on the personal styles of the leaders. "A lot," he says. "And I wrestled with that a lot. A big part of my choice was ... who is the prime minister who can make this work for three years?"

The only other politician Oakeshott spoke to regularly during this period, when he was also weighing up the possibility of taking up a ministry if one was offered to him, was his "hall neighbour" in parliament, Malcolm Turnbull. Oakeshott tried to convince Turnbull to take up a ministry in the minority government. "I tell [Turnbull] I would only consider being a minister in a Labor government if there were others who joined me," Oakeshott writes. "I am now testing the waters with Malcolm, to see if he wants to be a minister in a Labor government; if he does I would be happy to propose it."

To be fair to Malcolm Turnbull, Oakeshott writes, the conversations were nothing more than "flirtatious" in the political sense. "I keep dangling carrots in front of him and he looks at them, smells them, but doesn't quite nibble them." Oakeshott tells me, "It would be unfair of me to say [Turnbull] was up for it. He was regularly on the phone so he was listening. I was trying to sell it as an idea." And Turnbull was open to the idea? "He was listening."

Turnbull tells Good Weekend he doesn't recall Oakeshott discussing a ministry with him. "I spoke to Rob a couple of times during that period to encourage him to do a deal with [the Coalition]. I was certainly encouraging him to come across to us. I don't recall him making a suggestion like that but that may be because if he had, I would have regarded it as a joke."

The most fascinating parts of Oakeshott's book are vignettes of these private talks. He describes being schmoozed by casino mogul James Packer, who wanted the crossbencher to vote against prospective poker machine reforms - reforms that were ultimately killed off after a strong campaign by the gambling lobby, and after it became clear Gillard lacked the numbers within her own party to push the vote through.

Before their meeting at Melbourne's Crown Casino, Packer's office called Oakeshott's adviser and friend Pete Besseling to ask what the member for Lyne liked to eat. Besseling replied that Oakeshott liked chillies. Following a casino tour, the pair was invited to an intimate dinner with Packer, his adviser Rowen Craigie and Crown executive John Bresnan. "There, in the boardroom, were half a dozen bain-maries with different chilli dishes, plus a selection of red and green chillies on display," Oakeshott recounts. "Within 10 minutes, we were all sweating."

Oakeshott writes that Packer told him he had already taken 50 or 60 MPs through his casino, and that he would use his network to protect his business and "hurt the government badly if need be".

Then the tone of the conversation changed. "[Packer] slipped and said: 'I know all about you. I am friends, very close friends, with many people in key positions in politics. On the Labor side, I am close personal friends with [senators] Mark Arbib and Stephen Conroy. So don't be in any doubt that I know all about you." Packer's approach angered Oakeshott. "What Arbib and Conroy won't tell you is I don't give a f...," Oakeshott told the billionaire. "I don't give a flying f... about my own career, about relationships in politics, or about the success or otherwise of your business. In case you hadn't noticed, I have nothing to lose. I therefore have nothing to fear."

Mark Arbib, now a spokesman for Packer's company Crown Resorts, tells Good Weekend that Packer and Craigie refute Oakeshott's version of events: "The meeting was cordial, professional and attempted to provide him with information about Crown's responsible gaming programs and the flaws that existed in the then government's mandatory pre-commitment policy." Nonetheless, Oakeshott is scathing of the "puffed-up senators" who "court vested interests", and he believes Arbib and Conroy were trying to cosy up to Packer by intimating they held sway over Oakeshott's vote.

He is equally scathing of fellow crossbencher Bob Katter, whose party accepted a $250,000 donation from Packer "at a critical moment in the poker machine debate". "This was by far the biggest donation Katter's Australian Party ever received, or was ever likely to receive," Oakeshott writes.

Throughout the 17 days of minority government negotiations, Katter's behaviour became increasingly erratic and irritating, according to Oakeshott; so much so, that Tony Windsor made up phoney excuses to get out of meetings with him. Oakeshott recalls a cabinet room meeting in which Katter launched into a "lengthy and largely incoherent sermon on ethanol during which he waved around a photo of himself in Brazil filling up on ethanol petrol".

Katter says that Oakeshott "intensely dislikes me. I always found him to be a pleasant fellow and could not understand his attitude towards me.

"Packer came into my office and saw a photo of [1920s Queensland politician] Ted 'Red Ted' Theodore, who was Packer's grandfather's closest friend, and he was a bit shocked to find out we were from the same tribe. The pokie reform was a serious issue for my electorate and I disagreed before Packer on some of the reforms."

Oakeshott singles out shock jocks for particular criticism, writing that he was "increasingly disgusted by the overt and covert power they shamelessly wielded, not for Australia's interests, but for money".

He reports being invited to do an interview with radio hosts Steve Price and Andrew Bolt ("I don't know much about either of them," he writes with astonishing flippancy) and recounts that "what was meant to be an interview turns into a lecture ... they accused me of being self-indulgent and precious ... the interview goes off the rails."

Given the confrontational style of both men, wasn't it naive to think that such an interview would turn out differently? Oakeshott grows slightly agitated.

"What's not naive is I had been in politics for 14 years by that stage. They hadn't given a rat's wrinkle about me in those 14 years. I was supposed to bow to them despite being ignored by them, and by consequence my community being ignored by them, for so long. How dare they."

Regrets? he has a few. Oakeshott laments the fact that Gillard's minority government achieved little on Aboriginal policy, an issue he is passionate about, particularly since he married into an Aboriginal family.

Oakeshott reproduces an eloquent letter Noel Pearson wrote to him during the "17 days", in which Pearson argues passionately that conservatives are adopting policies that are progressive for Aborigines, such as private land title for traditional lands, and urges him to back Tony Abbott as PM. Oakeshott disagreed with Pearson but he came to realise he was right. He now views Labor as ineffectual on indigenous policy, and without strong connections to Aboriginal communities.

He criticises then indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin for achieving "no substantial reforms at all" and being seemingly "lost for direction". "My vision was reliant on working towards a better Australia," Oakeshott writes. "Pearson's vision was working with what we've got ... to my folly and Pearson's credit, he was more understanding of our political landscape."

Oakeshott also regrets being a "bit dogmatic and belligerent" in his holier-than-thou attitude to the dubious ethics of the media. "I accept I was quite often, in the media sense, leaving myself wide open to having the mickey taken out of me," he says. "But I didn't want to be a professionalised politician playing a game the way the press gallery wanted me to play. I was elected to do a job."

At times, Oakeshott's book, which has many of its chapters named after the various fronts on which the minority government fought ("Pokies reform", "The Miners and Deep Sea Trawlers, "The Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme"), reads like an obituary of policies that either failed or are destined to be rolled back by Tony Abbott's government. Oakeshott seems to tacitly acknowledge this when he says he "could have sided with the Coalition", but chose to protect his "integrity at the expense of [his] reputation", as he puts it (polls showed Oakeshott would probably have lost his seat had he recontested it at the 2013 election). "And in the face of the greatest of criticism, I'm proud of that fact."

Oakeshott suggests that two types of people emerged from the ashes of the 43rd parliament - the "uncomfortable and uncertain" ones and the "certain and ridiculous" ones. He admits he was one of the uncomfortable ones. Uncomfortable, he says, because he was constantly confronting uncertainty.

"I tried to expose the lie that there is certainty on many issues. While I think I lost that battle, I am relaxed at having at least tried."