[9] Bennett began her career in journalism in New South Wales, where she worked for various regional newspapers including the Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth.

She left Australia in 1995,[10] and lived for four years in Thailand where she worked for Australian Volunteers International in the Office of the National Commission of Women's Affairs, before moving to the Bangkok Post newspaper, where she was chief foreign sub-editor.

She settled in the United Kingdom in 1999, and said in a 2013 interview for the Australian Inside Story website about the country of her birth: "I can’t imagine going there by choice.

[12] She stood next in the London Assembly elections of 2012, as the fourth placed candidate on the London-wide list for the Green Party.

In February 2015, an interview with Bennett regarding the funding of house-building on the talk radio station LBC was described by her as "absolutely excruciating".

[20] In a halting interview on LBC in which she struggled to explain how her party would pay for 500,000 new council homes it is pledging to build.

[21] Bennett called the ruling "disgraceful and indefensible" and David Cameron claimed that he was "quite happy for there to be no debates at all" if the Green Party was not included.

[23] [24][25][26] On 7 October 2016, it was announced that Bennett had been selected to contest the Sheffield Central constituency for the Green Party in the 2017 UK general election.

[42] In an April 2015 interview, she said that she supports the Green Party policy of an economic and cultural boycott of Israel, and also thought that Britain should cease arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

[44] She opposes HS2, a high-speed railway, arguing that the project is unhealthy socially, bad for the environment, and harmful to local economies.

[47] During her time as leader, her partner was Jim Jepps, a left-wing activist who was a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) for approximately a decade until 2003.