Andrew Damien Wilkie (born 8 November 1961) is an Australian politician and independent federal member for Clark (previously Denison).

In 2003, in the lead-up to the Iraq War, he resigned from his position at ONA because he feared the humanitarian consequences of invasion, such as Saddam Hussein using his weapons of mass destruction or assisting terrorists.

Following his resignation he said: Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction program is very disjointed and contained by the regime that's been in place since the last Gulf War.

[1] In the aftermath of the September 11 Terror Attacks, the United States called upon Australia to assist in enforcing the 1991 Gulf War peace treaty which had been repeatedly breached by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

In the report he cautioned against unpredictable and potentially serious humanitarian consequences of war with Iraq, such as the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians.

[13] In response to widespread opposition to the war, Wilkie gave extensive television interviews and accepted numerous offers of public speaking engagements.

[citation needed] He subsequently gave evidence to official British and Australian inquiries into the government's case for involvement in the Iraq war.

[14] He describes his views on the nature of intelligence agencies and the analyst's work, the history of the Iraq war, the untruths of politicians and the attempts to suppress the truth.

"[17] Wilkie later told the press that in the lead up to his resignation he had increasingly encountered ethical conflict between his duty as an intelligence officer and his "respect for the truth".

[9] In 2016, after appearing at the Chilcot enquiry, Wilkie said the notion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and co-operated with terrorists had been "a lie ... No wonder John Howard and Tony Blair and George W Bush do stand accused of war crimes".

[18] Wilkie became a member of the Australian Greens by 2004, and stood as their candidate for the seat of Bennelong in that year's federal election, running against sitting Prime Minister John Howard.

On the fourth count, more than 79 percent of the Liberal candidate's preferences flowed to Wilkie, allowing him to win the seat with just over 51 per cent of the two-candidate-preferred vote.

[31][32] This did not interfere with his ability to attend Parliamentary sittings and he was present at the debate on same-sex marriage on 15 November, where he seconded the motion raised by Greens member Adam Bandt.

[34] In response, Wilkie said he had been "involved in bastardisation of teenage army cadets" at Duntroon during the 1980s, and apologised for this "inappropriate behaviour", but could not recall the specific incident alleged.

[35] On 21 January 2012, Wilkie announced that he was withdrawing his support for the Labor government after it broke the agreement he had signed with Julia Gillard to implement mandatory pre-commitment for all poker machines by 2014.

[37] In making his announcement, Wilkie stated that he would only support motions of no confidence against the government "in the event of serious misconduct" and would "consider budget measures on their merits".

In October 2014, Wilkie wrote to the International Criminal Court, seeking to prosecute Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the 19 members of his cabinet for crimes against humanity, with particular concerns relating to the treatment of asylum seekers.

[38] In February 2020, Wilkie and fellow MP George Christensen travelled to the UK to meet Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

During his speech Wilkie also canvassed his push for legislation to protect whistleblowers, measures to tackle problem gambling and a more humane approach to asylum seekers.

[43] Wilkie campaigned heavily against poker machines (colloquially "pokies") at the 2010 federal election, and immediately began forging ties with independent anti-pokies Senator Nick Xenophon.

100,000 Australians are problem gamblers and an additional 200,000 are significantly at risk of developing a full-blown addiction", and that the legislation is necessary to "[help] those who sometimes lose up to $1200 an hour on the pokies.

"[49] The Labor government withdrew their promised support for Wilkies's plan when their strength in parliament improved through a change of Speaker.

[62][63][64] On the 28th of November, Wilkie introduced a bill targeting loot boxes in video games, stating they "[groom children] for future gambling".

[65] The bill would make all games targeting at children that include any form of in-game gambling be mandatorally rated R18+, restricting their purchase to exclusively adults.