She grew up with her family on a mallee, sheep and wheat farm near Lameroo, 200 kilometres from the South Australian state capital of Adelaide.

[2] 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.

"[citation needed] 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.

[3] 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.

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.

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

[3] Pocock has called for JobSeeker unemployment payments and all forms of income support to be increased to $88 a day, and an improvement in rental rights and the availability of public housing.

[3] She has pointed to the historically high levels of the profit share in Australia and the consequences for inequality of stalled wages and falling real incomes for workers.

She points to the fact that she has had the advantages of living on a safe planet, enjoying free higher education, access to secure employment and the chance to buy a home through an affordable mortgage - all things unavailable to so many young Australians now.