IT’S been a couple of months since Giulia Jones left ACT politics, but the former deputy opposition leader isn’t missing the antics of the Legislative Assembly.

“I loved my job and then suddenly I didn’t any more, and that’s okay,” Mrs Jones says from her new office in Deakin, where she’s taken on the role of CEO of Painaustralia.

“I love to go home at the end of the day and hug my family. I can say to people ‘come over for dinner tomorrow night’. My neighbours drop in and I’m there of an evening or on a weekend. I love that I don’t have to check my diary to even see someone.”

The staunch Liberal member for Murrumbidgee resigned In June, saying she wanted to dedicate more time to her family.

Since first elected to the Assembly 10 years ago, Jones cites her advocacy for women among her proudest political achievements, including one initiative that saw locks installed on several breastfeeding rooms throughout government buildings.

During her decade in the chamber, Jones also took on some key shadow  portfolios, including Mental Health, Emergency Services, Early Childhood Education, Women and Multicultural Affairs.

But she didn’t leave before tying off her tenure with one last call to arms on an issue she’s been passionate about since the start of her political career.

In her valedictory speech, Jones put forward a Bill calling for better treatment of frontline emergency service workers suffering from post traumatic stress injury, the one issue she considers “unfinished business”.

“When one of our ambos or firies is seeking recognition of the mental injuries they’ve sustained protecting and serving our community, they are often told to prove their mental injuries are caused by their work,” she says.

“We all know they have been hurt on the job, and they should not have to prove that again and again.”

She says her Italian grandparents facing discrimination after their immigration to Australia was a key force in motivating her to take up the fight against xenophobia.

Jones’ tilt at politics was also inspired by her experiences as an army reservist, as well as in a number of advisory roles, including for Tony Abbott while he was leader of the federal opposition.

When Jones did step up to the plate in 2008, she managed to run a campaign during her husband’s deployment with the Army in the Middle East, all while looking after four children.

“It might sound strange, but it was good for me in a way, because instead of spending all day worrying about him I was really busy,” she says.

“He’d call me and I’d be standing at the shops and I’d be asking is everything okay? Okay, I can’t talk for long. I’ll miss voters but if you need anything let me know.

“The time when it was really hard was when there was a death. They never announce the name until they’ve told the family. Each time your heart would go into your throat until you knew.”

Jones credits her marriage as one of the reasons she made it in politics, calling her husband one of the “greatest things” of her life.

“He’s been the guy up at 5am folding laundry in our house so I could pursue the things I was passionate about,” she says.

“I never saw myself as tied to my family as some kind of weight, it’s been an anchor. I feel like my husband and children made me who I am to a large extent because of their concerns.”

Now a mother of six and the CEO of Painaustralia, Jones is advocating for those who live with chronic pain, a cause she was inspired to take up during her stint as shadow health minister.

Her political know-how, it seems, is more than coming in handy.

In one of her first moves as CEO, she slammed national opium reforms, writing to Health Minister Mark Butler that they have “failed Australians”.

“People who genuinely need opioids are being deprived of the medication they need and have been left suffering,” she says.

“Painaustralia has become convinced a formal review is needed after a survey of its own highlighted serious flaws in the new regulations.”

From her new office in Deakin, the Legislative Assembly is well out of sight, separated by the ANU and a sizeable stretch of Lake Burley Griffin.

Even then, it seems Mrs Jones has still got an eye on politics, saying she’s “not ruling out” returning one day. Capital Hill is just down the road, after all.