The daughter of two national basketball team players, Jackson was awarded a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1997, where she debuted in the WNBL when she was 16.

Following this conversation, she went to her room and typed a message on her computer that said "from this day on, nothing will stand in my way..."[11][14] When she was 14 years old, Jackson led her New South Wales side to a national championship gold.

[14] The rivalry intensified in 2000 at the Olympics in the gold medal match when Jackson purposely pulled off Leslie's hair extension while both were trying to grab a rebound.

[27] Jackson was offered a scholarship with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1996, when she was just 15, but her parents said no to this, as it required her to move from Albury to Canberra.

[30] With Jackson leading a side composed of the best 16- to 17-year-old development players in the country,[3] the AIS won the WNBL championship in the 1998–99 season.

[48] A subsequent MRI scan showed further damage to her knee that required new surgeries, forcing Jackson to sit out the rest of the season.

[7] In the second game of the 2002 final series against the Los Angeles Sparks, Jackson scored only four points in a loss by her team, after being kneed in the groin by Lisa Leslie.

[4][6][17] She called Tom Maher and her Seattle Storm coach Anne Donovan after winning the award,[11] and cried for an hour after learning she won.

She had a free throw shooting percentage of 93.4%, averaged 1.6 blocks per game, and had a player efficiency of 26.7, ranking third in the league in this category this season.

[1] On 2 September 2010, Jackson was presented her third MVP Award[65][76] at the Seattle Storm's Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Phoenix Mercury.

[79] Jackson opted to sit out the early part of the 2012 season as she wanted to concentrate on making the national team and competing in the Olympics.

[78] She returned in September and helped the Storm in two blowout wins against the Tulsa Shock, but then an injury sustained during the Olympic preparations sidelined Jackson for three games.

[80][81] The Storm saw an early playoff exit in their series against the Minnesota Lynx, with Jackson attempting a buzzer beater in the third game but falling short.

[85] The final year of her Storm contract was suspended in 2013 and dissolved under the new collective-bargaining agreement signed in 2014, but Seattle still retained Jackson's rights.

[45] During her 2014 recovery, Jackson expressed interest in returning to Seattle in 2015, saying that despite so much time sidelined by injury, "I've just had too good of a career there to let that fall by the wayside.

[17] Immediately following her season in Korea, Jackson moved to Russia where she was paid six figures for a one-month stint with WBC Spartak Moscow Region.

[93][94] She averaged 17.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game[95][37] prior to leaving the team in early January 2011 because of an injury, returning to Australia for her recovery.

[43] She helped Heilongjiang qualify for the playoffs with averages of 22 points, 9.5 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game, but a heel injury saw Jackson miss the post-season.

[37] Jackson was a member of the Australian senior team that won a silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics,[1][3][4][6][78][68][104] where she averaged 22.9 points and 10.0 rebounds per game.

[26][105][106][107] She played in the preliminary final against the Mozambique women's national basketball team,[108] and the gold deal match against New Zealand.

[114] The hamstring injury prevented Jackson from getting much play during the Olympic tournament, having only had significant court time in the matches against USA and the bronze medal play-off with Russia.

[84] After flying to Australia in February 2014 to operate on her heel and knee, Jackson committed to return to the Opals in time for the 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women.

[99] However, the delayed recovery of Jackson's knee led her to give up on the tournament to have her right hip operated on to fix a torn labrum in September 2014.

[48] However, while attending the Opals training camp in Canberra, she announced her retirement saying her conditions were not improved enough and she needed an "absolute miracle" to get into shape.

[118] Jackson had a reduced participation, with only twenty minutes and six points through the tournament, but became the first Australian athlete to win medals in five editions of the Olympic Games once she earned the bronze.

[50] During her WNBL return in 2022, Jackson played several games with a broken foot before a tear in her right Achilles ended her season in February 2023.

[55] After retiring, Jackson went through a partial knee reconstruction,[125] and decided to quit the painkillers and sleeping pills that she had been taking since the age of 20 to deal with chronic pain, leading to drug withdrawal.

The expensively printed magazine/book has been produced for the last three Olympic Games and, by the 2004 edition, was considered uncontroversial in Australia with its "artistic" approach to nude photography, and its equal coverage of male and female athletes, although it did create a stir in the United States.

"[132] As Jackson got older, she took on a more activist role,[20] working for domestic violence charities and helping children from Australia's outback get involved in sport.

[20] Her interests regarding gender studies were inspired by a book regarding the rape during the Rwandan Genocide, and Jackson is even an ambassador of a foundation that seeks to empower the abused women of that war.