He and his wife, Lady Barbara Hickey, owned
Lady Barbara, a
superyacht built in 1983, now known as
Emerald Lady. Their home was
Bartinon, a mansion standing on 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." ==References==