Rachel Brooking

Rachel Jane Brooking (born 18 October 1975) is a New Zealand Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament who served as the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries and Minister for Food Safety in the Sixth Labour Government. She first became an MP at the 2020 New Zealand general election. She is a lawyer by profession.

Biography
Brooking has a double degree in ecology and law from the University of Otago.

Prior to entering Parliament, Brooking worked as a lawyer. She specialised in environmental, resource management and local government law, and worked for a period for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in Wellington before returning to Dunedin to practice law with Anderson Lloyd. In 2019, Brooking was appointed to a government panel charged with reviewing the Resource Management Act 1991. She was previously the chair of the Otago/Southland branch of the Resource Management Law Association.

Brooking became a student activist in 1994, her first year at university, protesting against education minister Lockwood Smith over excessively high student fees. She was elected president of the Otago University Students' Association in 1997. In 2010, Brooking was appointed to the board of University Book Shop (Otago) Ltd, and in 2019 to the board of Dunedin International Airport.

Political career
At the Brooking stood for Parliament for the Labour Party. She hoped to be Labour's candidate for the electorate, later renamed Taieri, but Labour selected Ingrid Leary instead. Brooking was ranked 46 on the party list, which was a high enough ranking to enter Parliament. In her first term, she was appointed deputy chair of the environment committee and the regulations review committee.

The day after Dunedin MP David Clark announced on 13 December 2022 that he would retire, Brooking said she would seek the Labour candidacy for the electorate in 2023, for which she was selected.

On 11 April 2023, Brooking was appointed as Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, and also allocated the associate environment and immigration portfolios. She is a minister outside cabinet. Brooking was given the Food Safety portfolio following Meka Whaitiri's switch to Te Pāti Māori.

On 6 October 2023 Brooking, in her capacity as Oceans and Fisheries Minister, along with Minister of Conservation Willow-Jean Prime announced that the Government would create six new marine reserves between Timaru and the Catlins in the lower South Island.

During the 2023 election, she won the Dunedin electorate seat, defeating National's candidate Michael Woodhouse by a margin of 7,980 votes.

In late November 2023, Brooking was given the environment, food safety, and space portfolios in the Shadow Cabinet of Chris Hipkins.

On 5 December 2023, Brooking was granted retention of the title The Honourable, in recognition of her term as a member of the Executive Council.

Personal life
Brooking is married to Chris Jackson, a cancer specialist/oncologist who was the medical director for the Cancer Society of New Zealand. They have three children. Her father Tom Brooking is an emeritus history professor and retired lecturer at the University of Otago.