In this occasional series of profiles on the partners of notable Canberrans, this week reporter BELINDA STRAHORN meets Yasmin Coe, wife of former ACT opposition leader Alistair Coe.

IT’S busy outside the Deakin cafe. It’s a Tuesday, nearly 9.30am and while the power suits are drifting away to work, on a bench, a middle-aged woman, who appears to have just woken, warms her back in the sun. 

She’s surrounded by mums carrying kids and oversized nappy bags. And gym rats – all plugged into their phones – wait for their morning brew.

Inside, it’s just as hectic. I’m shown to a table in a quietish corner. 

“Morning!” chirps Yasmin, striding in a few minutes later. “I made it.” 

“It’s much easier this year with one drop off,” she says about the school run just completed for son Angus, six, and daughter Annabel, four.

Unsure of the preferred pandemic greeting we settle on a handshake-turned-elbow-tap.

She’s kind and composed. But, every now and then, her eyes betray a discomfort at being the centre of attention. 

For the first time in her married life, Yasmin Coe, the wife of former ACT opposition leader Alistair Coe, is discovering a world away from the political spotlight. 

The Coe’s lives have changed a lot since the October election.

The decision they took, as a couple, to step away from politics will allow Yasmin time to focus on her own career.

The trained accountant and self-taught chocolatier confessed she won’t miss politics and its all-consuming attention.

“I don’t think it’s something we can go back to,” she said.

“I’m grateful we’ve had this experience, I’m grateful for what it’s provided and what we’ve learned, as difficult as some of the moments have been, it’s also been very enriching.”

Alistair, the former Canberra Liberals leader and Yerrabi MLA announced his shock retirement from politics in early February, marking the end of a 12-year career in the ACT Assembly.

It wasn’t until after the election, when the family stepped off the political treadmill, that the full impact of political life was revealed, Yasmin said.

“It became more a job than a calling for Alistair… he was exhausted,” she said.

“We didn’t make the decision immediately, but Alistair realised he couldn’t do another four years at the pace he was going. He was giving more of himself to every other cause than to himself and the family.”

The Canberra Liberals suffered a drubbing at October’s poll, the party’s sixth-consecutive election loss.

Heavily involved in the campaign, the 36-year-old admits she struggled to process the magnitude of the election defeat and didn’t anticipate things going the way they did.

“The next morning was like waking up from a bad dream,” Yasmin said. 

“It was difficult seeing the pain in Alistair’s face knowing that something he and so many people had worked towards for so long didn’t come to fruition.

“It was crushing for what we felt were the changes that Canberra so desperately needed. On the ground, the sentiment in Yerrabi was in favour of change, they were for Alistair and for the Liberals. I now realise that was not the case everywhere else.”

Targeted throughout his political career for his socially conservative views, Yasmin expressed disappointment at the fact the public saw only glimpses of the “real” man.

“Alistair always had lovely and genuine reasons for doing what he did, he was never a person who enjoyed the limelight,” she said.

“A big win for him was achieving a great outcome for a family; he always had sincere reasons for doing what he did. I think it comes down to the fact that people see snippets on the media that are tightly controlled; you don’t get to control which bit of your press conference is seen.”

Born in Sydney, Yasmin grew up in Campbell, the first of three children to Karen who ran a curtain and soft-furnishing business from home, and Gerry, an accountant, who had moved the young family to Canberra from Sydney, after living and working in Pakistan for many years. 

“Mum and dad were married in Pakistan. Dad was working on an engineering project there. It was a big life change for them to return to Sydney and then start a new life in Canberra where they knew no-one. I think motherhood in the early days was very isolating for mum, but she grew to love Canberra, we all did.” 

If there’s such a thing as a typical 1980s Canberra childhood, Yasmin’s would be a contender. She recalls an active and carefree upbringing spent with younger siblings Lauren and Nathan. 

“We were very sporty, my sister and I were both involved in competitive sports from an early age starting with swimming, that involved being at the Deakin pool at 5am five mornings a week,” she said.

“Later, when rowing took hold, that was a 6am start and training every day after school. Mum and dad ran this great logistical exercise of running two businesses, with three kids and three very busy schedules of sport and other activities.”

When Yasmin embarked on her own career some years later, she followed her father, choosing to study accounting and business administration at the University of Canberra, while working at a local accountancy firm. 

She would go on to work at KPMG as a management consultant and later join the public service where she currently works, part-time, as a director in the tax office. 

Before that she spent time in Melbourne working for a government agency. It was about this time, in 2011, that Yasmin met Alistair, a young, ambitious politician embarking on his first term in the ACT Assembly.

The couple were introduced through mutual friends.

“We just clicked,” Yasmin said.

“He’s kind and compassionate, he’s a person of strong convictions, we got on really well.”

As the relationship grew, Yasmin returned to Canberra, and two years later the couple married at St Paul’s Church in Manuka.

Regarding herself as a political novice at the time she met her future husband, it was her relationship with Alistair that drew her into the political world, observing the single-minded dedication and ambition that drove him and eventually led to leadership of the party.

“When we first met he was very young, very hardworking and very ambitious; he didn’t have anyone to account to for his time and he was rumoured to work through the night,” she said. 

“He probably got twice as much work done as anyone else because he was in a stage of life when he could.”

Some years down the track, after having children, the couple’s priorities have changed. 

“For both our kids’ lives, Alistair has always occupied leadership roles. When Angus was born he was deputy leader and when Annabel was four months old he became leader,” she said.

“All we’ve ever known, until late last year, was Alistair giving so much of himself. Daily life was a bit of a grind. He would leave early and get home when the kids were asleep. Weekends were his only chance to see them and even then his calendar was full with community events or campaigning.”

Stepping away from politics gives Yasmin the chance to see her husband in a totally different way. No longer a public figure, his every move or utterance won’t be held under a microscope or criticised on a daily basis. 

“More often than not it was unwarranted criticism, armchair-expert type of thing. In that case you just have to know that the comment reflects more on the person making it than Alistair, and that’s not something to worry about,” she said.

With the former opposition leader still contemplating what he would like to do next, his wife suggests he’d be ideally suited to government consulting.

But for now, this “exciting” new chapter of their lives means Yasmin can turn her attention to other things.

A professional woman in her own right, Yasmin also sits on top of a delicious empire, a chocolate-bar business called Sweet Pea & Poppy, started while on maternity leave and co-founded with her mum. 

“After school I had dreams of doing something with chocolate or pastry but I didn’t know what that would look like. I always did something chocolatey on the side; I made all the corporate chocolate gifts for my dad’s business but it wasn’t until I went on maternity leave with Annabel that I turned my hobby into a business.”

From her Nicholls home, fitted with a commercial kitchen, production space and packing studio, she handcrafts chocolate bars.

“There’s a bunch of stores in Canberra and elsewhere in Australia that sells it and we started exporting to Japan this year,” she said. 

“I’ve enjoyed what the business has become and where it’s going… I feel it has always taken a bit of a back seat to lots of other things in my life.”

Perhaps not any more. Above all else, whatever the future holds:

“It’s looking good,” she said.