Louise Foster-Poletti: Mother of notorious Gold Coast conman Peter Foster passes away

The mother of notorious Gold Coast conman Peter Foster, and the first female real estate agent on the Gold Coast, has passed away.

Peter Foster on the Gold Coast with his mother Louise. Picture: Tertius Pickard.

LOUISE Foster-Poletti, the mother of notorious Gold Coast conman Peter Foster, has passed away - remembered as a real estate pioneer who was “tough but fair”.

Ms Foster-Poletti died in the early hours of Wednesday morning. It is understood she had been unwell for some time.

Gael Chudleigh, one of her former employees, fondly recalled her ex-boss, telling the Bulletin: “In her later life she was best known as Peter’s mother but in her day she was a ground breaking real estate agent. She was a real pioneer as the first real estate women in South East Queensland.”

Ms Chudleigh and her late husband met Louise when buying property before working as her receptionist in Foster and Stokes, the firm Louise founded.

“She was tough but fair and a very good sales person with a lot of devoted clients who liked the way she conducted herself,” Ms Chudleigh recalled, noting her nickname was Mama Mafia.

Peter Foster with his mother Louise Foster.

Ms Chudleigh said she got “into trouble” once when Louise went overseas for months and left her in charge of a Golden Gate apartments travel kiosk.

Peter, about 18 at the time, “somehow managed” to get a penthouse key and “threw this wild party”.

“It ended up in a huge cake fight with sponge and cream everywhere including the furniture, curtains and the rooftop pool. It took about a week with a team of professional cleaners to get it all fixed up. I thought we had got away with it until she called me into her office when she came back. She had found photos of the party in the bottom of Peter’s cupboard and demanded an explanation.

“I tried to protect Peter but she knew it wasn’t my doing. I remained close through the ups and downs over the years and the best description I can give of her is it was impossible to pull the wool over her eyes.”

Mr Foster was close to his mother, paying a fulsome tribute on Mother’s Day almost exactly one year ago.

He said at the time he had feared it would be his ailing mother’s last.

Peter Foster with his mother Louise Poletti in 1997.

“The Foster family circus, as I imagine us to be, has travelled the world as one ever since I first started creating mayhem in the early 80s,” he said last year.

“We have celebrated Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday or a similar sentiment worldwide, from the Ritz casino in London, the Waldorf Astoria in New York, Beverly Wiltshire in LA, to the beaches of the Caribbean and our own island paradise in the South Pacific.”

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While Mr Foster is well known for his criminal past, he last year claimed he was tired of being “Peter the conman” in a tell all interview with QWeekend where he spoke of his mother.

Louise Foster was suffering from dementia and his life had become about caring for her.

“She’s dying. A little bit more every day,” he told QWeekend in October.

“She just fought cancer and it’s just wear and tear and getting old at 88. We don’t have much time left.”

Of her real estate days, Mr Foster recalled: “She was big time. Now there are more women than men. She faced all the fear and ­resentment people had before women today ever had to.”

He called her as his greatest defender, who offered unwavering support in the face of public ridicule of her only son.