David Pocock

David Willmer Pocock (born 23 April 1988) is an Australian politician and former professional rugby union player. Raised in Gweru, Zimbabwe, Pocock moved to Australia as a teenager and played for the Australia national rugby team. He played primarily at openside flanker, and was vice captain of the Brumbies in Super Rugby. After his retirement, Pocock worked as a conservationist and social justice advocate. In the 2022 Australian federal election, Pocock ran as an independent candidate for one of the Australian Capital Territory's two Senate seats. He defeated Liberal incumbent Zed Seselja, ending the two major parties' duopoly on the ACT's Senate delegation which had been in place since the ACT was granted Senate representation in 1975.

For other people named David Pocock, see David Pocock (disambiguation).

Senator
David Pocock
Pocock in 2022.
Senator for the Australian Capital Territory
Assumed office
21 May 2022
Serving with Katy Gallagher (since 2019)
Preceded byZed Seselja
Personal details
Born
David Willmer Pocock

(1988-04-23) 23 April 1988
Messina, Transvaal, South Africa[1][2]
Citizenship
NationalityZimbabwean Australian
Political partyIndependent
Other political
affiliations		David Pocock
Spouse
Emma Palandri
​
(m. 2018)​
Residence(s)Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
Education
Alma mater
WebsiteOfficial website
Height1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)[5]
Weight103 kg (227 lb)[5]
Rugby union career
Position(s) Flanker, No. 8
Senior career
Years Team Apps (Points)
2016−2020 Panasonic Wild Knights 21 (15)
Correct as of 22 February 2020
Super Rugby
Years Team Apps (Points)
2006–2012 Force 69 (40)
2013–2019 Brumbies 43 (60)
Correct as of 8 March 2019
International career
Years Team Apps (Points)
2008–2019 Australia 78 (45)
Correct as of 19 September 2019

Early life

Pocock was born on 23 April 1988 in Messina, South Africa.[6] He is the oldest of three sons born to Jane (née Ferguson) and Andy Pocock. He spent his first year on a citrus estate, "Denlynian", in Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, which was bought by his grandfather Ian Ferguson in the 1960s and ultimately employed up to 300 people.[7] He was born in South Africa at the hospital nearest to his parents' home which was in Zimbabwe.[1]

When Pocock was a child, his parents moved north to Gweru and joined his paternal grandfather and uncle on a 2,800-hectare (6,900-acre) mixed farm, growing vegetables and flowers for export and also running cattle. He attended Midlands Christian College where he began playing rugby. In 2000, following Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe, Pocock's parents applied to immigrate to Australia. They were soon given a notice of compulsory acquisition requiring them to vacate their property within 90 days, after which they stayed in a family holiday home in Port Alfred, South Africa, for eight months. They received Australian visas in 2002 and settled in Brisbane.[8]

Pocock was educated at the Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane. In 2005, he played in the school's undefeated premiership-winning 1st XV alongside future Australia teammate Quade Cooper. That same year, he was selected to play in the Australian Schoolboys team.[9]

Rugby career
Pocock (7) playing for Australia in 2009

Pocock played for the Force, where he made his debut in 2006 against the Sharks in Durban.[10] Pocock made appearances for Australian Schoolboys and Australia A in the 2007 IRB Pacific Nations Cup,[11] earning man of the match multiple times in the tournament. He then made his Australia debut as a substitute against the Barbarians on 3 December 2008.

Pocock made his test debut in Hong Kong against New Zealand in late 2008, and then played against Italy and the Barbarians on the Wallabies spring tour. That same year he also captained the Australian Under 20s at the Junior World Championships in Wales, and was then awarded the Emirates Western Force captaincy for the development tour of England.

In 2009 Pocock played 13 Super Rugby games and was again called up to the Wallabies Squad. The year 2009 was a breakthrough year, during which he featured in 13 of the 14 Tests played by Australia – including a man of the match effort in the drawn Test against Ireland at Croke Park, as well as a maiden Test try during the 33–12 win over Wales at Cardiff. Pocock had earlier started the year by scoring his first try for his adopted country during the 55–7 win over the Barbarians in a non-cap match in Sydney. As a credit to his improving performance in the game Pocock replaced longstanding Wallaby openside flanker George Smith, late in the 2009 Tri-Nations. In the Wales test in the 2009 Autumn Internationals, he put his thumb back into its socket after it had been dislocated and continued to play. He was, however, substituted at half-time and replaced by George Smith.[12]

In 2010, Pocock became the first choice openside flanker for the Wallabies. He won the John Eales Medal in 2010 – the highest honour in Australian Rugby. Pocock was recognised at an international level after being nominated alongside five other players for 2010 IRB Player of the Year, an award given to the best player in world rugby. In addition he was recognised with the Australia's Choice Wallaby of the Year and awarded the Rugby Union Players Association (RUPA) Medal of Excellence.

In both 2010 and 2011, Pocock was a finalist for the IRB International Player of the Year.[13][14]

Pocock took over the Wallabies captaincy during the 2012 midseason test series when regular captain James Horwill was injured.[15]

At the conclusion of the 2012 Super Rugby season, he left the Western Force to join the ACT Brumbies.[16][17]

In 2013, he underwent a knee reconstruction, and Michael Hooper became the Wallabies first choice number 7.[18]

In 2014, in the course of his third game back after knee reconstruction, he damaged his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and had another knee reconstruction in late March 2014. On 15 January 2015, Pocock and teammate Nic White were appointed vice-captains of the Brumbies for the 2015 Super Rugby season.[19]

He played in all three games during the 2015 Rugby Championship, Australia won all those games and won the trophy for the first time since the 2011 Tri Nations Series.

On 23 September 2015, Pocock scored two tries in Australia's opening game of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, a 28–13 win against Fiji at the Millennium Stadium,[20] as well as also scoring a try in a defeat to the 2015 Rugby World Cup final the New Zealand All Blacks.[21]

Pocock signed a three-year deal with the Panasonic Wild Knights of Japan's Top League in May 2016. The deal, agreed on in negotiations that also involved the Australian Rugby Union (now Rugby Australia), was structured to make him eligible to play for Australia in the 2019 Rugby World Cup. He played the 2016–17 Japanese season with the Wild Knights; once that season ended in January 2017, he took a sabbatical from all rugby until the start of the Wild Knights' 2017–18 season. Immediately after the end of that season, he returned to Australia to play for the Brumbies in the 2018 and 2019 Super Rugby seasons, skipping the 2018–19 Japanese season. On 6 September 2019, Pocock announced his international retirement after the 2019 World Cup in Japan, where he will then complete his Japanese contract in 2019–20.[22][23]

On 23 October 2020 Pocock announced his retirement from all forms of rugby to focus on conservation efforts.[24]

Post-rugby career
Pocock in 2016

In 2021 Pocock graduated with a Master of Sustainable Agriculture from Charles Sturt University[25] which he began in 2013 while playing Rugby.[26]

Activism

In 2012, he publicly supported the Australian Government’s since-revoked fixed price Emissions Trading Scheme, saying, "Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time and to finally see the government taking action is a bit of a turning point... It's probably not the perfect model, but I think it's a really good start and it's something we need to do for the future of Australians."[27] In 2014, Pocock visited the Leard Blockade against the expansion of the Maules Creek mine in the Leard State Forest and was arrested for taking part in a nonviolent protest.[28]

He has been a public advocate in the campaign for same-sex marriage in Australia. Although he and his partner Emma held a marriage ceremony in 2010, they had refused to sign documents that would result in their legal marriage until all Australians had the right to do the same.[29] After the country enacted legislation to allow same-sex marriage in 2017, they officially signed marriage documentation on 1 December 2018.[30]

Pocock has promoted accessibility for the hearing-impaired. He sought to bring an Auslan interpreter to the Senate floor for his first speech as a member of that body on 1 August 2022. Under Senate rules, Pocock was required to ask permission to bring a "stranger" to the floor, which is almost exclusively used for visiting dignitaries. The Greens supported his request, but both major parties opposed it, fearing that it would set a precedent to invite more "strangers". The government soon offered a compromise of having an interpreter shown on screens placed on the floor of the Senate. Pocock stated that he would pursue rules changes to allow Auslan interpreters on the Senate floor. During a 2015 rugby union match in which he scored a hat-trick, he made the Auslan sign for applause after one of his tries as a shout-out to a friend whose first language was Auslan.[31]

Political career

In December 2021, Pocock announced he would be running as a candidate for the Senate, representing the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in the forthcoming federal election.[32] In an interview with Television New Zealand in May called 'From Ruck to the Senate'[33] Pocock explained his reasons for running for the Australian Senate as an independent candidate and how he hoped to bring a socially progressive voice to the Senate and reform the integrity monitoring process for politicians in parliament. He prosecuted an agenda to tackle corruption in government and political advertising laws, as well as campaigns to increase Australia's expenditure on renewable energy and restore the rights of territories to legislate on euthanasia.[34][35] Pocock was declared elected by the Australian Electoral Commission on 14 June 2022, thereby winning the second of the two ACT seats and unseating incumbent Liberal Senator Zed Seselja to become the first non-Labor or Liberal person to be elected as a Senator for the ACT, and the second non-Labor or Liberal person elected to represent the ACT at the federal level (after Lewis Nott, who was MP for the ACT in 1949–1951).[36][37]

In July 2022, Pocock opposed the Labor government's defunding of the Australian Building and Construction Commission but reversed his position to vote in favour of abolishing the ABCC in November 2022.[38]

In November 2022, Pocock successfully negotiated an amendment to create the "Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee", which would publish yearly recommendations on the adequacy of welfare payments two weeks before each federal budget, in exchange for passing Labor's changes to industrial relations reforms.[39][40] Ahead of the 2023 Australian federal budget, Pocock agreed with the committee's reccomendation for a substantial increase to the JobSeeker Payment as a first priority, and criticised the Labor government for not "do[ing] more to protect the most vulnerable."[41]

David Pocock (party)
David Pocock
AbbreviationDP
LeaderDavid Pocock
Founded2021
Registered18 March 2022
IdeologySocial progressivism
Anti-corruption
Senate
1 / 76

David Pocock, sometimes referred to as the David Pocock Party, is an Australian political party founded by Pocock in 2021.[42]

Under the Australian Senate electoral system, only registered political parties are able to have a name and logo appear above the line on the ballot paper.[43] The Pocock campaign said without appearing above the line, Pocock "would have had no chance of winning".[43] Another independent ACT senate candidate, Kim Rubenstein, also set up her own party – Kim for Canberra – for the same purpose.

David Pocock was successfully registered with the Australian Electoral Commission as a party on 18 March 2022.[42][44]

Following the 2022 election, the party declared almost $1.7M in total donations, including $856,382 from Climate 200.[45]

Although he remains a member of the party, Pocock is listed as an independent by the parliamentary website.[6]

Personal life

Pocock is married to Emma Palandri.

Together with Luke O’Keefe, he ran a not-for-profit organisation, Eightytwenty Vision, that aims to help the less fortunate people of Zimbabwe.[46] Registration of this charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission was voluntarily revoked in 2018.[47]

References
  1. Rattue, Chris (8 October 2011). "The man apart in the Australian Rugby World Cup pack". New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  2. Knowler, Richard (19 September 2009). "Wallabies flanker 'lucky' his family escaped Zimbabwe". stuff.co.nz. Stuff.
  3. "David Pocock names second candidate, renounces citizenship". 22 April 2022.
  4. "Is David eligible to stand for election – isn't he a citizen of Zimbabwe?". davidpocock.com.au.
  5. "David Pocock". Eurosport. Retrieved 21 June 2022.
  6. "Senator David Pocock". Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  7. "True Grit - Part 1". Australian Story. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 22 February 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  8. Maley, Jacqueline (10 November 2012). "Code of honour". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  9. "Australian Schoolboys teams: 2004-2015". 10 July 2015.
  10. "The force of Pocock". www.dailytelegraph.com.au. 6 May 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  11. "Turner stars in Australia A victory". ESPN.com. 25 May 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  12. "About Dave". David Pocock. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  13. Guardian Staff (19 October 2011). "Rugby World Cup 2011: Who should be the IRB's player of the year?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  14. "All Black McCaw retains IRB award". 25 November 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  15. "David Pocock is new Wallabies captain, as team is named for Scotland Test". Australian. News Limited. 3 June 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
  16. "Pocock signs with Brumbies". Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax. 29 July 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
  17. "Pocock faces surgery". Rugby 365. 10 March 2013. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
  18. Dutton, Chris (16 January 2013). "David Pocock shrugs off Wallabies leadership speculation". Canberra Times. Fairfax. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  19. "White and Pocock named Brumby vice-captains - Sanzar".
  20. "Australia miss out on try bonus point despite victory over Fiji". Guardian. 23 September 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  21. "Rugby World Cup Final 2015: All Blacks beat Wallabies in thrilling decider". November 2015.
  22. "David Pocock signs with Panosonic (sic) Wild Knights for three years". ESPN (UK). 29 May 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  23. "Pocock confirms international retirement following 2019 Rugby World Cup". Fox Sports. Christy Doran. 6 September 2019.
  24. Hytner, Mike (23 October 2020). "David Pocock retires: Australian great quits rugby to focus on conservation efforts". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  25. "Graduation Program 2021" (PDF). Charles Sturt University.
  26. Gavel, Tim. "David Pocock: influential on and off the field". Riotact. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  27. "Pocock pulls on green guernsey". 30 June 2012.
  28. "David Pocock, former Wallabies captain, charged over Maules Creek coal mine protes". By Kerrin Thomas and staff Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1 December 2014. 30 November 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
  29. "Australian rugby player David Pocock speaks out for marriage equality". 23 August 2012.
  30. Ward, Mary (3 December 2018). "David Pocock marries 'best mate' in beautifully simple ceremony". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  31. Remeikis, Amy (29 July 2022). "ACT senator David Pocock denied Auslan interpreter for first speech in Senate". TheGuardian.com. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  32. "Former Wallabies captain David Pocock running as independent candidate for ACT Senate seat". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 December 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  33. TVNZ (15 May 2022). "David Pocock: From Ruck to the Senate". TVNZ. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  34. "Pocock clear on his own political influence". The Australian. 23 May 2022. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  35. Kristine Li Giam & Juliette Baxter (24 March 2022). "AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID POCOCK — INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR ACT SENATE". woroni.org.
  36. "ACT elects David Pocock as first independent senator, unseating Liberal Zed Seselja". ABC News. 14 June 2022.
  37. "Australian Capital Territory Senators have been decided". aec.gov.au. 14 June 2022.
  38. Thompson, Angus (13 July 2022). "Pocock warns Labor not to axe union-hunting watchdog for 'ideology' reasons". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
  39. Lowrey, Tom (27 November 2022). "Controversial IR laws set to pass parliament, with tweaks for small business and 'game-changing' reviews for JobSeeker". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
  40. Kehoe, JOhn (27 November 2022). "Labor to face pressure to increase JobSeeker under IR horse-trading". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  41. Evans, Jake (18 April 2023). "Committee tasked with investigating JobSeeker rate urges 'substantial' increase ahead of federal budget". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  42. "Registration of a political party David Pocock" (PDF). Australian Electoral Commission. 18 March 2022. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
  43. "Why does David have a party if he's an independent?". David Pocock.
  44. "Wallabies star scores above the line". Sydney Morning Herald. 7 April 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  45. "Clive Palmer's mining company pumped $116m into UAP at 2022 election, helping it outspend major parties". The Guardian.
  46. "An unlikely union: About David Pocock". Canon Australia. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  47. "Eightytwenty Vision Inc". Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
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