Steph Cooke: The Accidental MP Who Wakes at 4:35am to Represent an Area the Size of Switzerland
The Member for Cootamundra on winning a brutal by-election she never expected to win, running 177 towns on 4:35am starts, and why she solves problems 'with people, not for them.'
Most people, Steph Cooke says, assume she lives in Cootamundra. She's the Member for Cootamundra, after all. The truth is more revealing: she grew up in Temora, lives on the outskirts of Young, and represents an electorate so vast it almost defies belief.
"When you represent 177 towns, villages and localities across an area almost the size of Switzerland," she says, "you don't have a lot of time to waste, and there's always a lot that needs to be done."
This conversation didn't happen in a studio. It happened on a plastic table with a tablecloth, two microphones drifting downhill on a slope, at a festival in Grenfell — the kind of place where the woodfired pizza is across the road and the Mr Whippy van is just to the left. That setting tells you most of what you need to know about how Steph Cooke does politics.
The MP who never meant to be one
Cooke is refreshingly blunt about how she ended up in New South Wales Parliament: she didn't plan it.
"I never planned to go into politics. I sort of put my hand up for this not expecting to win. My first thought was, oh my goodness — what have I done?"
Her predecessor had announced her retirement. People in the community came up to her — you'd be really great at that, you should put your hand up — and she had only a few days to decide. She'd always intended to build a successful business, and she had. Politics was never the plan.
Then she won. And the timing could hardly have been worse.
Winning the seat nobody wanted to lose
Cooke was elected at the Cootamundra by-election on 14 October 2017 — and she walked straight into a wall of anger. Communities had been "rocked" by forced council mergers and amalgamations; the greyhound industry had just been shut down. Running for the Nationals as part of the government, she felt the protest vote building as she moved door to door.
"The margin of this seat was more than halved," she recalls. "There was a real protest vote. I could sense the anger in the communities as I moved around asking people to vote for me."
She describes almost falling over the line — a "Steven Bradbury," in her words. But there was no grace period. Sworn in three weeks later, she refused to waste the gap: the very next day after the by-election she turned up at the local Cowra show, and says she's been turning up every day since.
4:35am, every single day
Ask Steph Cooke what gets her out of bed and she'll give you a literal answer: 4:35am, every morning.
"I just start and I just keep going. Do the next thing in front of you until the day is finished." The wall comes around 3pm — that's the afternoon-coffee hour — but the rhythm rarely breaks: meetings, functions, debutante balls, Rotary and Lions on weeknights. "Today I'm in Grenfell. Tomorrow I'm in Weddin. The next day I'll be over in Temora."
Her philosophy for the work itself is the line that sticks longest:
"It's all about solving problems with people, not for people. That makes sure the person feels a sense of agency — rather than me just swooping in, fixing everything, and walking away. That's a band-aid."
Why business before politics matters
Before parliament, Cooke ran her own business for more than a decade — four shops, twenty florists reporting to her. She argues that life experience is exactly what's missing from modern politics.
"For far too long we've had career politicians — people who left school, went to university, got involved in university politics, took a job with a politician, and then became one themselves. They don't know anything else." Knowing what it's like to not be sure you can pay your staff's wages, she says, changes how you govern.
What's next
The next New South Wales state election is in March 2027, and Cooke has been pre-selected to run again. She also left the door open to come back on The Open Tab for the harder conversations — the local issues that are "a little bit controversial," the ones people would rather not rock the boat on. "Truth hurts," as she put it.
It's a fitting offer from someone whose whole pitch is that authenticity beats polish — that in an age of AI and social-media superficiality, people just want to know the person across the table is the real deal.
This is a short, raw, roadside conversation — and a good one. Watch or listen to the full Steph Cooke episode →