[3] She was first appointed to the level of Deputy Secretary in November 2008, when she moved to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government.

A stimulus measure responding to the Global Financial Crisis, the RLCIP allocated over $1.1 billion to local governments for community infrastructure projects, with the goals of stimulating the economy to aid in economic recovery, generating employment opportunities, and helping councils tackle the accumulation of pending work in community infrastructure.

[7] Foster served as Deputy Secretary of Governance at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) starting in December 2017.

She rose to public prominence in that role when she conducted a review of processes for workplace complaints at Parliament House in response to allegations that Brittany Higgins, a former ministerial staffer was sexually assaulted by a colleague in the office of the then-defence industry minister in 2019.

The most "significant failing" identified in the audit was the failure to "provide recommendations to the Minister about which projects should be approved within the available funding of $550 million".

[15] In their second audit, the ANAO found that the department had not adequately monitored grant expenditure, leading to delays in delivering the planned fiscal stimulus.

[20] Foster reportedly "did not consider the decision not to make appointment public [of Scott Morrison to the Health Portfolio] to be inappropriate or wrong.

"[21] The process for Foster's later appointment as Departmental Secretary of Home Affairs in late November 2023 also received considerable public criticism.

[27] Subsequent reports indicated that Foster departed from the Minister's office visibly distressed after a rebuke for disclosing information deemed embarrassing to the Government.