Who is Ed Cocks? Canberra's newest MLA to sit in Legislative Assembly for first time

The new member for Murrumbidgee was once a fixture in Canberra's night club scene where he was an electronic dance producer.

"I'm not just a family man, I'm not just a public servant. I've been a music producer, I've run events at nightclubs," Mr Cocks said.

"I spent a long time producing electronic music and performing dance music around Canberra."

He found a home away from home at the former Heaven nightclub where he was a fixture where he spent a lot of time producing his music.

"It was a gay club and it was a place where I discovered a whole community of people who came together and where they got to be themselves," Mr Cocks said.

While Mr Cocks won't be spinning discs in the assembly, he will face a crowd which can sometimes be as rowdy as those in the nightclubs of Canberra.

His first sitting week will also be a baptism of fire as the territory budget will be handed down on the first day he is in the chamber.

But Mr Cocks said he was ready for the challenge.

The father of two was born in Canberra and has lived in the capital for most of his life. He spent some years as a child living in Moruya. He went to Padua High School (now Mackillop College) and Erindale College.

Mr Cocks lives in Monash with his wife Nicole and children Cayleigh, 10, and Dylan, 8.

This means he will be representing an electorate where he doesn't actually live, as Monash is in Brindabella.

Mr Cocks said he made the decision to run in Murrumbidgee at the last election as there were three Liberal members in Brindabella during the last term.

He said he worked in the Murrumbidgee electorate, in Woden, and he felt he could make improvements in that area after watching "at least a decade of decay set into Woden".

Prior to his time in the Assembly, Mr Cocks had worked in the federal public service for more than two decades. He worked at the Department of Health.

Over the past six years he has worked in mental health policy and consequently he developed a passion for the sector. This passion has been recognised as he has been appointed the opposition spokesman for mental health.

"I was in the mental health area throughout a lot of the COVID pandemic and we so we were flat out trying to set up support for people there and make sure not only the pandemic supports were there but making sure people had their own mental health supports as well," Mr Cocks said.

Mr Cocks replaced former deputy opposition leader Giulia Jones, who resigned from territory politics in June.

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When candidates were invited to apply for the vacancy left by Mrs Jones, Mr Cocks said he did have to think about it.

"I absolutely had to think about it, two years on from an election, working in the public service and I was really focusing on how I could deliver and support people in that role. I really had to stop and think and make sure coming this way was how I could best serve people," he said.

Mr Cocks became a member of the Liberal Party in 2013. He said he had become disillusioned during the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard years.

What prompted him to run as a candidate for ACT politics was the Mr Fluffy saga, after the deadly asbestos was found in a friend's house.

"The way people were treated through the Mr Fluffy debacle, I thought it was just terrible. It seemed to be driven by a real focus on money and I felt if things had been managed better we should have had the reserves to be able to be compassionate," he said.

"I decided that I couldn't just sit back and complain. I cared enough about it and it was time to do something."

He ran in the 2016 ACT election and he also ran as the Liberals' candidate for Bean at the 2019 federal election. At the 2020 election he finished fourth on the Liberals' ticket and ninth overall with 4.9 per cent of the vote.

Countbacks in the ACT are based on recounting the ballot papers of the resigning candidate.

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