Justin Hickey

Who is Justin Hickey?

Sir Justin Hickey JP was a Sydney businessman, insurance executive and philanthropist.

Hickey was born in a working class suburb of Sydney, where he attended De La Salle College. He reportedly left school at the age of 14 to work in a factory, later making a fortune by founding Accident Insurance, which became Australia's largest privately owned insurer.

He and his wife, Lady Barbara Hickey, owned the "Lady Barbara", a 35m superyacht built in 1983, now known as "Emerald Lady". Their home was a Bartinon mansion standing on 2325sqm of land, once Queensland's most expensive home, located on Marseille Court in the exclusive Sorrento area of Australia's Gold Coast. It was built for about $8 million in the 1980s and sold in 1998.

Hickey, a sailor and raconteur who staunchly supported the Australian National Party, told an ABC Four Corners program in 1982 that he was knighted after giving $100,000 towards the construction of a senior citizens' hospice in Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's electorate. Hickey replied to a question regarding the confluence of the contribution and the knighthood by saying "I paid the hundred thousand before I received the knighthood."