Stephen Jolly (born 1962) is an Australian politician, socialist activist, author and construction worker. He is a councillor in the

City of Yarra The City of Yarra is a local government area (LGA) in Victoria, Australia in the inner eastern and northern suburbs of Melbourne. It is the second smallest LGA in the state with an area of , and in June 2018 it had a population of 98,521, ma ...

and previously was the President and lead candidate for the

Victorian Socialists The Victorian Socialists (VS) is a democratic socialist political party based in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in February 2018, it is an electoral alliance of various socialist parties, organisations, community groups and trade un ...

during the 2018 state election. Following allegations of

family violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner v ...

, Jolly was suspended from the Victorian Socialists pending an investigation, leading him to resign from the party.

Biography

Jolly was born in London to a single Irish mother who had left Ireland due to concerns regarding the predominant

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's attitude towards single parents. He was raised in Ireland by his grandparents in a public housing estate. He moved to study at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

in 1977. In the early 1980s, he moved to Ireland and became involved in the

Militant The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin " ...

faction of the Irish Labour Party. In 1983 he supported underground opposition to

Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...

's regime in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. Jolly moved to Sydney in 1985 and became involved in the

faction of the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

(later renamed to the Socialist Party), serving as Editor of its newspaper ''The Militant'' and as National Secretary until 2000. While working in construction, he has served as a shop steward with the Construction, Forestry, Mining, Maritime and Energy Union. In 1989, at the age of 27, Jolly was a first-hand witness of the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

while he was speaking to protestors and helped them organise. Jolly was reportedly the only Westerner to address "the half-a-million strong crowd of students occupying Tiananmen Square". He noted in a 1990 news article that the protestors "never believed the People's Army would turn against them" and has since been involved in pro-democracy in China rallies. In 1993, Jolly and Militant was involved in a year-long occupation of Richmond High School, organised to prevent the Victorian government from closing the school. In 2000, he supported and was involved in the S11

anti-globalisation The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...

protests in Melbourne. In 2011 and 2012, he pledged to support the

Occupy Melbourne Occupy Melbourne was a social movement which took place from late 2011 to mid 2012 in Melbourne, Australia as part of the global Occupy movementParticipants expressed grievances concerning economic inequality, social injustice, corruption in th ...

movement against corporate influence in politics. Jolly's socialist political stances have led to hostile reactions from far-right groups such as the

United Patriots Front The United Patriots Front (UPF) was an Australian far-right extremist group that opposed immigration, multiculturalism and the religion of Islam. Formed in 2015, the group has been largely dormant since their Facebook page was deleted follow ...

, which has promoted rallies and death threats against him. In 2015, a man was charged over death and rape threats towards Jolly. In 2016, Jolly led a mass resignation from the Socialist Party (now Socialist Action). He alleged there had been a cover-up of allegations of sexual abuse within the party,. The party denied any cover-up. Jolly and others who had left then established a new group, The Socialists. In 2018 he joined the

, an electoral alliance combining the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative, as well as non-party affiliated socialists.

Political career

Local government (2004–present)

In 2004 he was elected as a Councillor for The City of Yarra in the Landgridge Ward, representing the suburbs of Abbotsford, Alphington, Clifton Hill, Collingwood, Fairfield, Fitzroy and Richmond. Jolly was reportedly the first elected socialist councillor in Melbourne "since the Second World War". In 2017, Jolly voted in favour of the controversial decision to cancel its Australia Day ceremony as a part of the Change the Date campaign. This resulted in backlash from the

federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

whereby the council was stripped of its citizenship powers and the council being protested by nationalist groups.

State government campaigns

Socialist Party (1999–2016)

Jolly has attempted to contest the Victorian electoral district of Richmond as a member of the Socialist Party several times. In these elections he stood as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, as the party was not registered with the VEC. In the

1999 Victorian state election The 1999 Victorian state election, held on Saturday, 18 September 1999, was for the 54th Parliament of Victoria. It was held in the Australian state of Victoria to elect the 88 members of the state's Legislative Assembly and 22 members of the 44 ...

he gained 12.0% of the vote. They re-contested the seat in the 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014 state elections, with lesser success. During these elections the party campaigned for policies such as free public transport, promoting the local arts scene, and

anti-capitalism Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as s ...

. Their 2010 campaign was supported by the CFMEU, ETU, and UFU, who raised $25,000 for the campaign.

Victorian Socialists (2018)

In February 2018, Jolly announced that he will be contesting a seat in the Legislative Council in the

2018 Victorian state election Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the short ...

s as a leading candidate of the

ticket. Jolly stated this campaign attempted to fight for the programs promoted by international left-wing politicians such as

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...

, and

Jean-Luc Mélenchon Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Mélenchon (; born 19 August 1951) is a French politician who was a member of the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône from 2017 to 2022. He led the ''La France Insoumise'' group in the Nation ...

. The decision to run in the

Northern Metropolitan Region Northern Metropolitan Region is one of the eight electoral regions of Victoria, Australia, which elects five members to the Victorian Legislative Council (also referred to as the upper house) by proportional representation. The region was create ...

has been considered controversial by Reason Party's

Fiona Patten Fiona Heather Patten (born May 1964) is a former Australian politician. She is the leader of the Reason Party and was a member of the Victorian Legislative Council between 2014 and 2022, representing the Northern Metropolitan Region until she ...

, due to the possibility of splitting the non-conservative vote in the count for the last seat. This ticket was supported by a wide variety of trade union groups, including the ETU, NUW, CFMMEU, UFU, AMIEU, and VAHPA. The ETU secretary Troy Gray justified this support over parties such as the

, a traditional unionist party, by stating that Jolly was the only candidate representing "

blue collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...

values". The campaign was also endorsed by several public figures such as

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

Gary Foley Gary Edward Foley (born 1950) is an Aboriginal Australian activist of the Gumbainggir people, academic, writer and actor. He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Abo ...

, and

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali (; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and con ...

Bibliography

* ''Eyewitness in China'' (Melbourne: Socialist Party, 1989) * ''Behind the Lines – Richmond Secondary College: a school that dared to fight'' (Melbourne: Global Books, 1996) * ''That Which Surrounds Us: Refugees, Racism and Capitalism in Australia'' (Melbourne: Socialist Party, 2002)

References

External links

Councillor Stephen Jolly , Yarra City Council

Official party website

Official Twitter account
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jolly, Stephen 1962 births Chinese democracy activists 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre Living people People from Melbourne 21st-century Australian politicians Australian builders Victoria (Australia) local councillors Australian socialists Leaders of political parties in Australia Irish emigrants to Australia Trade unionists from Melbourne Australian trade unionists Irish expatriates in South Africa Irish expatriates in the United Kingdom University of Cape Town alumni