Political Life
He was also active in politics for many years, having joined the Australian Labor Party in 1982. He served as the president and secretary of his local branch from 1982 until 1984, and as a delegate to the party's state conference from 1984 to 1992.
Wilton won pre-selection to contest the Liberal-held marginal seat of Isaacs in the leadup to the 1996 election. Though his party lost government at the election, Wilton won the seat, aided by boundary changes which turned it into a marginal Labor seat, defeating sitting member Rod Atkinson. He remained on the backbenches once in parliament, and served on the Financial Institutions and Public Administration Committee for all of his four years in parliament. Wilton became a very well known and highly regarded local MP, although he was not a major player on the national stage.
Wilton is still regarded as one of Labor's most effective marginal seat campaigners. He gave away most of his electorate allowance by buying bicycles for school-children in his seat of Isaacs. He believed in "constant campaigning" which led him to conduct "mobile offices" very frequently throughout his electorate to ensure that constituents could contact him at all times.
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