NSW: Wilkie emerges as moderate Green to haunt Howard

AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-2003
NSW: Wilkie emerges as moderate Green to haunt Howard

By Jim Hanna

SYDNEY, Dec 10 AAP - Former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie has completed a remarkable
political transformation, revealing today he joined the Greens last month.

Mr Wilkie refused to say whether he was seeking to enter parliament at next year's
federal election, but sources suggest he will again be a thorn in Prime Minister John
Howard's side during the campaign.

With preselection for Greens Senate places already decided, some in the party speculate
Mr Wilkie might run against Mr Howard in his northern Sydney seat of Bennelong, if only
for nuisance value.

Mr Wilkie quit his job as senior transnational issues analyst at the Office of National
Assessments in March, saying intelligence did not justify an attack on Iraq.

In subsequent public appearances, he said there was no evidence linking Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein and terrorist group al-Qaeda, contradicting US and Australian justifications
for the war.

Today, Mr Wilkie said he decided to join the Greens after sounding out influential
Labor senator John Faulkner, Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett and former Democrats
leader, now independent senator, Meg Lees.

"The principles that underpin the Greens are appealing to the mainstream and I think
it's interesting that people like me are now attracted to the Greens," he told reporters.

Mr Wilkie said he grew up in a conservative Catholic family, joined the Liberal Party
briefly and had 20 years in the military, an upbringing he believes gave him a very strong
sense of right and wrong.

"(It) actually equipped me to handle my decision about the Iraq war," he said.

"I've been moving from that hard right conservative position slowly to the left for many years."

He now describes himself as a moderate Green and credits former Labor leader Bill Hayden
for moving him to the left while an army aide-de-camp to Mr Hayden during his time as
governor-general.

Mr Wilkie said he did not regret joining the Greens before Labor found a new lease
of life under new leader Mark Latham.

"The Labor Party, while it has some good people in it and it does some good things,
is too preoccupied with its own political fortunes," he said.

"I was frankly unimpressed with the way the new leader has done a backflip in regard
to his view about the United States."

Australian Greens senator Bob Brown said he was pleased Mr Wilkie joined the party.

"His future involvement in politics is something for him to work out but I certainly
think he'd do an excellent job if ever he were elected into a parliament," he said.

AAP jph/kbw/tma/de

KEYWORD: WILKIE NIGHTLEAD

2003 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.