Page 931 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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Dr Foskey did not contest the 2008 election, but her hard work laid the foundation for the stunning result of four Greens being elected in an Assembly of 17, including both Minister Rattenbury and me. I think the people of Canberra saw her as a sensible, ethical, hardworking and compassionate alternative to the two larger parties, and her good work was a major reason why the people of Canberra gave us a go in 2008.
At the end of her term, Dr Foskey left Canberra. Having left her public housing tenancy and her job, she found herself unable to afford to rent in Canberra. Also, as she said to the local ABC:
I was tired, I’d put a lot into politics and I just needed to have a break in the bush. East Gippsland was my home.
She went back to her beautiful A-frame and looked after the house and garden. As they say in Zen, before enlightenment, chop wood; after enlightenment, chop wood. In an interview with her friend Shelly Nundra in 2010, Dr Foskey said:
It might be too late to change the world, but it’s a way of life for me. At the broad scale, I am pessimistic about the future of our planet and the well being of its creatures, including us. But I am heartened to see small groups of people everywhere making a difference, taking their local futures into their own hands.
She continued to be involved in her community. In 2016 she became involved in electoral politics again to ensure that environmental issues such as climate change were part of the elections—first running for local council, then for the state seat of East Gippsland in 2018 and for the federal seat of Gippsland in May last year.
Very shortly after that, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She told the world through Facebook that it looked like she could be treated, and she was thinking that she would have a life span measured at least in years at that point in time. In July that year her house burnt down, which was particularly amazing, because it had survived the East Gippsland bushfires about a year earlier, which burnt to within 100 metres of her place. After that she lived in Orbost with her daughter Eleni in a house that they were renovating. That was also a lot closer to Bairnsdale hospital, where she was being treated.
I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Dr Foskey in Canberra last year, when she came here for medical reasons. She was in fine spirits. Her health seemed to be good and her spirit was indomitable. She seemed very strong—much stronger than me. The thought that she would be dead now was inconceivable. Then came summer and the fires all through Gippsland. Despite this, her house renovations proceeded and she shared beautiful pictures of her newly renovated house, especially the kitchen doors, on Facebook only a week or two before she died. There were also, of course, her commentaries about the state of the world.
Last week she was admitted to hospital. Unfortunately, she was treated as a potential COVID-19 patient and was thus in isolation, so her daughter was not able physically to be with her for her two-day stay in hospital just before she died.
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