Early career Hood has worked in hospitality, as a lifeguard and swimming instructor, and as a journalist for
The Advertiser newspaper.
Political career Hood worked as a media and then
policy advisor, and was a senior adviser to the
premier of South Australia,
Jay Weatherill, for two years prior to the defeat of the Labor Party in the
2018 state election. She then worked as political adviser to the then
leader of the opposition,
Peter Malinauskas, and immediately prior to running as the Labor candidate for
Adelaide in the
2022 state election, Hood was Malinauskas' director of policy. In the
2022 state election held on 19 March 2022, Hood received 56.2 per cent of the
two-party-preferred vote (2PP) from 40.6 per cent of the
first-preference votes, achieving a swing of 7.1 per cent and defeating the Liberal minister for Child Protection,
Rachel Sanderson, who had held the seat since 2010. She was supported in her campaign by the mentorship of the
Victorian Minister for Agriculture,
Mary-Anne Thomas, through
Emily's List Australia. Prior to the election, the
ABC election analyst
Antony Green stated that results in Adelaide have tracked closely with the seat being won by the party that won the state-wide 2PP at every election since 1985. Hood has been a member of the parliamentary economic and finance and publishing committees since 3 May 2022, and was a member of the Establishment of Adelaide University Committee from 6 July to 17 November 2023. On 19 September 2025, in a Cabinet reshuffle following the announcements of retirement by
Susan Close and
Stephen Mullighan, Hood was promoted to the position of Minister for Climate, Environment and Water. This position is a high-profile one, at a time when the government is tackling a
harmful algal bloom around the coast of SA as well as lobbying for Australia's bid to host
COP31, a global climate change conference, in
Adelaide. ==Personal life==