Andrew Cornwell

Andrew Stuart Cornwell (born 29 December 1969) is a former Australian politician. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from the 2011 election until 2014, representing the electorate of Charlestown. He was elected as a Liberal Party candidate, and represented that party until 6 August 2014, when he moved to the parliamentary crossbench and sat as an independent after the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard evidence that Cornwell may have breached electoral funding laws. After earlier announcing that would not contest his seat at the next state election, triggering the 2014 Charlestown by-election.

Early years and background Cornwell is a veterinarian with a practice located in Cardiff, New South Wales. He is married with three children and lives in the Lake Macquarie suburb of Warners Bay.

State politics In 2011, Cornwell contested the normally safe Labor seat of Charlestown in the Hunter Valley. He defeated Labor incumbent Matthew Morris with a swing of 25.2 per cent and winning the seat with 59.9 per cent of the vote on a two party preferred basis. The swing was all the more remarkable since the seat had been in Labor hands since its creation in 1971. In parliament, Cornwell was appointed the government's chief whip in the Legislative Assembly.

On 6 August 2014, a hearing of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) revealed that Cornwell had received $10,000 in illegal donations from Newcastle Lord Mayor Jeff McCloy. Following this revelation, Cornwell resigned from the Liberal Party and moved to the crossbench as an independent pending the result of the inquiry. Cornwell has said that before the 2011 election, McCloy, a prominent developer in Newcastle, met him in McCloy's Bentley and gave him the money, which in turn was given to the Liberal Party. On 8 August 2014, Cornwell announced that would not contest his seat at the next NSW election, yet by 12 August he had resigned from parliament with immediate effect.

In October 2018 Andrew Cornwell was "exonerated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption over perjury allegations." "ICAC announced this week that it had accepted the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions that there was insufficient evidence to charge Mr Cornwell with giving false or misleading evidence to the 2014 Operation Spicer." The DPP advised the ICAC the previous year that "it would not pursue perjury charges against Ms Brookes."

Following the resignation of Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Cornwell called for reform of the ICAC for “allowing mud to stick even when allegations are never proven”. He stated that it “had taken four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear his name”.