[1] Leaving the army as a sergeant in 1919, Brooker married Lydia Wilson in London, and in 1921 was tempted by the offer of free passage to Australia.

Brooker, his wife and their baby arrived in Melbourne on 31 August 1921, and moved to Tasmania where he worked as a farm labourer, then as a pipe-fitter at the Cadbury's Chocolate Factory in Claremont.

[1] As a fitter, Brooker was a member of the Australian branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union,[2] and joined the Labor Party, unsuccessfully running for the electorate of Franklin in the Tasmanian House of Assembly.

Inspired by Major C. H. Douglas' Social Credit movement, Brooker ran for Franklin again in 1934 and won, becoming an MHA on 9 June 1934.

[4] Four months after resigning the Premiership, Brooker died at his home in Montrose after suffering a pulmonary oedema on 18 June 1948.