Deborah Jane Foskey (12 November 1949 – 1 May 2020) was an Australian politician with the

ACT Greens The ACT Greens is a green political party located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and a member of the federation of the Australian Greens. Both parties were formed in 1992, three years after the ACT achieved self-government in 1989. ...

Early life

Foskey was born at

Terang Terang is a town in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. The town is in the Shire of Corangamite and on the Princes Highway south west of the state's capital, Melbourne. At the , Terang had a population of 1,824. At the 2001 census, ...

in rural Western Victoria, the second of a family of four. Her father worked for the Victorian Department of Agriculture as a dairy supervisor and later moved to Bacchus Marsh. Deb was educated at Bacchus Marsh State School and Bacchus Marsh High School where she was dux in her final year. Foskey studied a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in English and philosophy and a Diploma in Education at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

where she boarded at

Medley Hall Medley Hall is the smallest residential college of the University of Melbourne in Australia. Established in 1954, it is situated on 48 Drummond St in Carlton, Victoria, away from other residential colleges in Parkville. It is home to approxima ...

, and worked as a primary and secondary school teacher. She later lived in Cabanandra,

East Gippsland East Gippsland is the eastern region of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia covering 31,740 square kilometres (14%) of Victoria. It has a population of 80,114. Australian Bureau of Statistics2006 Census Community Profile Series: East Gippsland (Sta ...

and eventually moved with her children to the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

in the 1980s. In 1986 her son Brandon died in the

Murrumbidgee River The Murrumbidgee River () is a major tributary of the Murray River within the Murray–Darling basin and the second longest river in Australia. It flows through the Australian state of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, desce ...

at Casuarina Sands in the ACT. In 1992, she undertook a Masters of Letters in human ecology at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

, looking at Canberra's development through a political and ecological lens, which she finished in 1994. In 1996, she undertook a

Doctorate of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in political science and international relations at ANU, looking at the role of community movements in the framing of the Program of Action for the United Nations Conference on Population and Development, which she completed in 2003.

Campaigns

In the 1970s and 1980s, she was instrumental in the formation of several national parks protecting old growth forests through her work in the Concerned Residents of East Gippsland. In Canberra Foskey continued to campaign for protection of forests in SE NSW and East Gippsland, as well as working on forest policy. Foskey continued campaigning on forest protection, sustainability and climate change issues in her later years. Foskey established WTOwatch in the ACT, as part of the anti-globalisation movement that grew around the Seattle WTO protests in 1999.

Political career

Foskey was involved in the establishment phase of the ACT Greens in the early 1990s, and was an office bearer of the ACT Greens and the Australian Greens at various times during the 1990s. She ran for the Senate in the ACT for the Greens in 1998, and for the ACT Legislative Assembly seat of Molonglo in 2001. She was elected to the

Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory (known in short as the ACT Legislative Assembly) is the unicameral legislature of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It sits in the Legislative Assembly Building on Civic Sq ...

in the 2004 election for the electorate of Molonglo as the only Green in a parliament of majority Labor Party governance, which she talks about in her inaugural speech. Foskey worked to raise issues of sustainability, democracy and compassion in her time in the Assembly, until her retirement in 2008. In 2005, she courted controversy by refusing to leave her public subsidised house despite earning an MP's wage of over $100,000.

Further election campaigns

Foskey stood as a candidate in various elections to ensure that environmental issues were aired during the campaigns, including East Gippsland council elections in 2016. She ran as a Victorian Greens candidate at the

2018 Victorian state election Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the short ...

for the seat of East Gippsland, but was unsuccessful. Climate change was a core issue for her in this campaign. She also unsuccessfully stood as the Greens candidate for Gippsland at the

2019 Australian federal election The 2019 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 18 May 2019 to elect members of the 46th Parliament of Australia. The election had been called following the dissolution of the 45th Parliament as elected at the 2016 double dissolut ...

After politics

After retiring from politics in the ACT, Foskey returned to Cabanandra in East Gippsland in late 2008. She worked as a consultant at the Centre for Rural Communities from 2009 and at Tubbut Neighbourhood House from 2011. She was Chair of the Orbost Exhibition Centre in late 2019.

Personal life

Foskey had two daughters.

Illness and death

In mid-2019, Foskey was diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

, and began chemotherapy in

Bairnsdale Bairnsdale () ( Ganai: ''Wy-yung'') is a city in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia in a region traditionally owned by the Tatungalung clan of the Gunaikurnai people. The estimated population of Bairnsdale urban area was 15,411 at Ju ...

. During her treatment, she was informed that her Cabanandra home had been destroyed in a fire. She died on 1 May 2020, aged 70.

References

External links

Official site

Parliamentary homepage

Greens homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foskey, Deb 1949 births 2020 deaths Australian Greens members of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly Members of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly 21st-century Australian politicians 21st-century Australian women politicians Women members of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly Australian schoolteachers Australian National University alumni University of Melbourne alumni University of Melbourne women Deaths from lung cancer Deaths from cancer in Victoria (Australia)