Maggie Hickey

Margaret Anne Hickey is a former Australian politician. She represented the electoral division of Barkly for the Labor Party (Northern Territory Branch)|Labor Party] in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1990 to 2001. She was Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 1999.
Hickey was born in Surrey, England and emigrated to Australia with her husband in 1975. She was a librarian prior to entering politics. In the 1980s, Hickey was a strident campaigner against a proposed toxic waste incinerator in Tennant Creek that was supported by local MLA and Chief Minister Ian Tuxworth from 1984 onwards. She was a member of the Labor Party up until her resignation about six months before the 1987 election, having become disillusioned with a number of stances of the local party branch. At the 1987 election, she challenged Tuxworth, who by this stage had been ousted as Chief Minister and left the governing Country Liberal Party for the rival Northern Territory Nationals, as an independent candidate. She was defeated by only nineteen votes, and overturned the result in the Court of Disputed Returns, which found that the Labor candidate had been unqualified to stand. Hickey contested the ensuing by-election as the Labor candidate, but was again defeated by Tuxworth.