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Born in Bregenz, Vorarlberg, Martin worked for the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel. As a freelance writer, he has written and co-authored several popular books, among them The Global Trap: Globalization and the Assault on Prosperity and Democracy (Die Globalisierungsfalle, 1996) and Bitter Pills (Bittere Pillen) about the pros and cons of pharmaceuticals.
In the 1999 European Parliament elections Martin was selected as leader of the Social Democratic Party of Austria's group. However, differences with the party's leadership led to his complete break with the SPÖ.
Early in 2004, he accused MEPs of all parties of falsely claiming reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses. He produced evidence of MEP's signing the register in the morning to receive their daily allowance, and then immediately leaving the building. Broadcast on German TV, the accusations caused an uproar. The then European Parliament spokesman Hans Gert Pöttering dismissed Martin's accusations as unnecessarily aggressive and the President of the Parliament Pat Cox said that he would have preferred to deal with the case internally.
In response, he was accused of claiming too much in meal expenses. He was later cleared of this charge.
Eventually the disclosures and the public outrage they induced resulted in a change of the expense system.
In the 2004 European Parliament elections Hans-Peter Martin decided to compete on his own party list "Hans-Peter Martin's List – For genuine control and transparency in Brussels" (Liste Dr. Hans-Peter Martin – Für echte Kontrolle in Brüssel). For an independent he received a surprising 14% of the vote – more than the Greens or the Austrian Freedom Party – and gained two of Austria's seats in the European Parliament. He was widely credited with having reduced the vote share of the far-right parties.
His colleague at the time of the elections was Karin Resetarits, a former journalist with both the ORF and a private radio station. However, they soon found themselves in heavy disagreement and ceased to work together. She joined the Liberal group in the European Parliament on June 7, 2005
He also competed in the Austrian legislative elections of 2006 again as an independent but did not obtain a seat in the parliament.
In 2009, Martin flirted with the idea of heading a planned Austrian list of the pan-European eurosceptical alliance Libertas.eu, but later rebuffed Libertas' advances. While Libertas finally didn't manage to set up a list at all, Martin successfully competed with his independent list. He even surprised many by increasing his vote share to 18%, giving his list three seats in the European Parliament.