Andrew Wilkie

Andrew Wilkie

Andrew Damien Wilkie (born 8 November 1961, Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian politician and independent federal member for Denison. He was formerly an army officer and then intelligence analyst.

In 2003 Wilkie resigned from his position in the Office of National Assessments, an Australian intelligence agency, over concerns that intelligence was being misrepresented for political purposes in making the case for Australia's contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the Howard government.

Since then he has been active in Australian politics. He was a Greens candidate for both the federal Division of Bennelong in the 2004 federal election and for the Senate in Tasmania at the 2007 federal election. In 2010 he ran as an independent candidate for the state seat of Denison at the Tasmanian state election, narrowly missing out on the final vacancy. Later in the year, again as an independent candidate, he ran for the federal seat of Denison at the federal election and won. He finished third on first preferences but was able to win the seat after the distribution of preferences