[2] 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.
[3] 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.
[6] Her term as leader saw her deal with Labor's response to the government's controversial mandatory sentencing laws, largely cited as a factor in the CLP's landslide win at the 1997 election, disputes over native title, and the 1998 statehood referendum.
[13] After retiring from parliament in 2001, Hickey moved to Adelaide, where she studied visual arts at the University of South Australia.