Career
She represented the electoral division of Barkly for the Australian Labor Party in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1990 to 2001. She was Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 1999. In the 1980s, Hickey was a strident campaigner against a proposed toxic waste incinerator in Tennant Creek that was supported by local Modern Language Association and Chief Minister Ian Tuxworth from 1984 onwards.
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 successfully 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.
She was elected to the Legislative Assembly at the 1990 election, winning Barkly after an unfavourable electoral redistribution saw Tuxworth unsuccessfully attempt to switch to the seat of Goyder. On 16 April 1996, Opposition Leader Brian Ede resigned as territory Labor leader, and Hickey, who had been Ede"s deputy, was elected the new leader.
In August 1998, she defeated a leadership challenge by Syd Stirling with a margin of six votes to one.
She ardently opposed federal Labor"s restrictions on expanding uranium mining, condemning both the "three mines" and "no new mines" policies. She stated that she would remain as the member for Barkly in the Assembly until the next election, and Clare Martin was elected to succeed her as party leader the next day. Asked about her resignation in 2002, following her successor Martin"s landmark 2001 election victory, Hickey stated that she had no regrets about the decision.
After retiring from parliament in 2001, Hickey moved to Adelaide, where she studied visual arts at the University of South Australia.