Derek Woolner is a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the ANU.

He was policy advisor to Defence Ministers Lance Barnard and Bill Morrison and Director of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Group of the Parliamentary Research Service of the Commonwealth Parliament till December 2001.

He has since been a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Australian National University where he writes on the implementation of defence policy, particularly in the fields of finance, force development and materiel acquisition. He is co-author of Steel, Spies and Spin: The Collins Class Submarine Story.