Barbara Pocock

Pocock is also a campaigner for urgent climate change action, LGBTQ+ rights, refugee rights, and anti-nuclear policies. Since 2015 she has been a member of 'Mothers for a Sustainable South Australia' (MOSSA), a campaign group of South Australian mothers who have opposed proposals for a high level nuclear waste dump in South Australia, and more recently the disposal of medium and low level waste in the state.

In 2010 Pocock was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to industrial relations and social justice.

Pocock has two children. She separated from their father in 2007 after 22 years. She now lives with her partner, Ian Campbell. She is a Port Adelaide football fan, and a recreational gardener, painter, sewer and writer.

Pocock joined academia in 1989 when she was employed by the South Australian College of Advanced Education as a Lecturer. She was then promoted to a Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide in 1997, before being promoted once again to Associate Professor in 2002. After her time at the University of Adelaide she began work at the University of South Australia as a Professor in 2006, before becoming an Emeritus Professor at the same institution in 2015. She established and led the Centre for Work and Life at UniSA from 2006-2014.

After her stint at the Reserve Bank, Pocock began work in 1981 at the Department of Industrial Relations in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley Region as an Equal Employment Opportunity Officer.

Pocock was employed by the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1979 as a Research Officer in the International Department in which she would write briefing notes for the Governor. Her portfolio encompassed regions including Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. It was during this time at the Reserve Bank that Pocock first became more aware of poor working conditions and the need for unionism. She states that she realised the importance of the feminist movement in the workplace after seeing numerous women, including many migrants, working in the low paid part of the Reserve Bank counting money.

She began studying economics in 1975 and graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1978 with a Bachelor of Economics (First Class Honours). She completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide in 1997 with a thesis titled "Analysis of male power in Australian unions, its effects and how to combat it."

Pocock moved to Adelaide in 1969 to attended Wilderness Girls High School as a boarding student before moving to Norwood High School in 1972 to complete year 12.

Barbara Ann Pocock AM (born 22 March 1955) is an Australian politician who was elected at the 2022 Australian federal election to become a Senator representing South Australia from July 2022. She was officially declared elected by the Australian Electoral Commission on 15 June 2022. Previously, she ran as the Greens candidate for the Division of Adelaide in the 2019 Australian federal election. She is a professor and economist.

Pocock was born in Berri on 22 March 1955. She grew with her family up on a mallee, sheep and wheat farm near Lameroo, 200 kilometres from the South Australian state capital of Adelaide.