Green Left’s Stefan (Stef) Skibicki was taken from us suddenly on October 16, at the age of 59.
Stef had been part of the GL team for the past two decades, writing articles but mostly as production manager.
But before that he had helped establish branches of the Socialist Workers Party, Democratic Socialists and Socialist Alliance in Tharawal/Wollongong.
Stef knew he was a socialist from an early age. He was a voracious reader and, as a result, had an encyclopaedic knowledge of politics, history and science.
He was a working-class intellectual, with a dry wit and a love of heavy metal music, especially Judas Priest.
Stef trained several GL editors in the finer points of punctuation and grammar (he hated exclamation marks!), initiating the updating of GL’s comprehensive Style Guide every few years.
Ever reliable, he travelled from his home in Dapto (in the Illawarra) to Sydney, and back, five days a week — until the COVID-19 pandemic seriously disrupted GL’s production and forced us all to work remotely during lockdowns.
Stef took bottom line responsibility for all the productibottom-lineon hiccups, including staying behind to fix problems long after we’d knocked off.
His layout skills were second to none; he was deft with the red pen too, when the editors had let the author run on a little too much. He untangled many a convoluted set of phrases.
Stef was a private person, though when he had sized you up, he would share, including his Polish history, his love of dogs and his love of Thai curries.
He wouldn’t hold back when he caught you slipping up, or heard the latest political stupidity. You could depend on Stef to pounce on it with a dry sarcastic remark — an important skill to share in our line of work.
Stef attended St John’s Primary School in Dapto with his older brother Roger.
Roger said the school “instilled a sense of humility” and love for humanity in them, but “the nuns couldn’t quite get us to believe in the Catholic rhetoric”.
Stef attended Dapto High School, where his favourite subjects were History and English, and where he made some lifelong friends.
According to Roger, Stef was deeply affected by his parents’ break up, when he was around 10 years old. He and Roger stayed with their mother, Trudy, who worked in the canteen at the Port Kembla steelworks, as she battled on.
Long before joining the GL team, Stef helped establish the Illawarra branch of the Socialist Workers Party, which became the Democratic Socialists. He worked in the Resistance Bookshops in Gadigal Country/Sydney (mid-1980s) and Wollongong (early 2000s).
Stef was a founding member of the Socialist Alliance, formed in 2001. He was involved in educational classes in the Illawarra branch and many learned from him about historical events, Marxism, socialism and current affairs.
He was encyclopaedic and had an incredible patience during discussions.
Stef was involved with promoting solidarity the revolutions in Central and Latin America. He was involved in many environment campaigns, including the powerful and successful community campaign to stop coal seam gas exploration in the Illawarra.
Stef preferred not to take a public lead, but he was critical to strategising and — very importantly — making things happen.
Rallies, dinners, whatever, Stef was the one who stayed to the end, making sure no one was left to finish up by themselves.
He was a calm, kind and thoughtful person. Filmmaker and former Port Kembla steelworker Robynne Murphy remembered Stef as “a gentle giant, never taking credit for all the hard work he did in our political community”.
However, when needed, Stef did step up to the front. He helped found the Wollongong Climate Action Network and kept it going when it nearly folded.
Stef was the local Socialist Alliance spokesperson for climate and he helped found the local Refugee Action Collective.
Following the COVID-19 lockdowns, we saw less of Stef at GL. He eventually withdrew from the team in 2022.
Stef battled health issues in his later life, but he didn’t ask for support, nor did he want to talk about his personal struggles.
Apart from his commitment to the struggle for socialism, Stef was a keen football fan — supporting the Sydney Swans and Greater Western Sydney Giants.
Stef’s comrades, friends and family gathered in Dapto on November 14 to celebrate his life and say farewell.
Vale Stef, an authentic, honest, working-class intellectual.
[The authors would like to thank Roger Skibicki, Chris Williams and Duncan Roden for their assistance with and contribution to this obituary.]