Tammy Franks

Tammy Franks MLC has been a Greens Member of SA’s State Parliament’s Upper House since her election in 2010.

She sits alongside Mark Parnell MLC, Greens Leader who was elected in 2006. Tammy’s portfolios reflect her background in the human rights and community sector and include Water and the River Murray, Education, Health, Aboriginal Affairs, Communities and Social Inclusion, Industrial Relations, Emergency Services, Animal Welfare and Gender and Sexuality. She also sits on a number of standing and select Committees including the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee and the Transforming Health Select Committee.

Tammy came to politics through the campaign to keep the then Salisbury campus from being closed shortly after the University of South Australia was established. She went on to be elected as the 1995 National Union of Students President then was an advisor (Higher Education and Youth Affairs) for Senator Natasha Stott Despoja for the next five years. From 2000 onwards Tammy worked for local offices of international social justice and human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and the YWCA and in this time was a YWCA delegate to the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women/Beijing +10 conference. Directly before her election she was the policy officer for the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia, the peak advocacy body for SA’s mental health NGO sector.

Tammy’s parliamentary highlights include fighting for cancer compensation for CFS firefighters, removing the criminalisation of those who care for mentally ill friends and family, putting reparations for Stolen Generations on the parliamentary agenda and securing the inquiry that led to the Government scheme, legalising Industrial hemp and winning recognition for rainbow families. Tammy is proud to fight for a fairer future and to be part of a Party that stand on principle in the parliament and are not afraid to bring on the difficult, but necessary, debates on issues such as voluntary euthanasia the old parties would rather avoid.

She’s a single mum to a rambunctious, roller skating obsessed pre-teen which she finds to be excellent preparation for the shenanigans she sometimes experiences in the Chamber.