FORMER Greens member of the ACT Legislative Assembly Deb Foskey has died after a months-long battle with lung cancer. She was 70.

Dr Foskey sat for Molonglo in the sixth Legislative Assembly (2004 to 2008), the only period where there was a majority government led by Labor’s Jon Stanhope. Before her election to the Assembly, she was a Senate candidate in 1998 and stood for the Assembly in 2001.

In a media statement, the ACT Greens say: “Dr Foskey committed her life to sustainability, compassion and community. In the ’70s and ‘80s she was a forest campaigner in East Gippsland, successfully working to protect precious forests in the area.

“She was a school teacher, and moved to Canberra with her children in the 1980s. She completed a masters in human ecology and a PhD in political science from ANU, focusing on population issues and analysing humanitarian ways to achieve a lower ecological footprint.

“In her term, Dr Foskey worked incredibly hard on issues such as sustainability, and triple bottom line analysis – which has been a standard process when evaluating major ACT government decisions through the cabinet process for the past eight years.

“She was particularly proud of her strong support for residents of the Narrabundah long-stay caravan park, ensuring that when the private owner sold the land the residents were not simply evicted but that the ACT government needed to step in and do a land swap with the owner to preserve the homes of those residents, some of whom had lived there for over 20 years. That caravan park is still home to more than a 100 people today and is an important part of the affordable housing options available in the Territory.

“One successful piece of legislation initiated by Dr Foskey was the anti-SLAPP legislation (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Those kinds of SLAPP suits are now possible in Tasmania, but we can be proud that we have upheld people’s rights to protest peacefully here in the ACT.”

After her term in the ACT Assembly, Dr Foskey returned to her bush block at Cabababsra in East Gippsland where she was involved in a range of community support activities as well as running for local council. Last year she stood as the Victorian Greens candidate in East Gippsland at the federal election.

She is survived by her two daughters, Sam and Eleni.