Amanda Nolan (born 18 January 1967) is an Australian comedian and writer. She was an unsuccessful candidate at the

2022 Australian federal election The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 21 May 2022, to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Morrison government, Liberal–National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, soug ...

and the

2025 Australian federal election The 2025 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 3 May 2025, to elect members of the 48th Parliament of Australia. All 150 seats in the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives were up for election, along with 40 ...

. Nolan ran as the Greens candidate for the federal division of Richmond in the 2022 Federal Election, however she did not win the seat. Nolan was then announced as the Greens candidate for the same division again in May 2023, however would again lose to Labor incumbent Justine Elliot.

Early life

Nolan was born on 18 January 1967 in

Wondai Wondai () is a rural town and locality in the South Burnett Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Wondai had a population of 1,975 people. Geography Wondai is located to the south of the Bunya Highway, north west of the st ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

. Nolan attended Kingaroy State High School, graduating in 1984. She went on to complete a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

, majoring in drama, literature and journalism, and trained as a vocational teacher of adults with learning disabilities. During university, Nolan also gained experience part-time in the modelling industry.

Career

Writer

Nolan has been the entertainment editor of the ''

Byron Shire Echo ''The Byron Shire Echo'' is a weekly independent compact newspaper published every Wednesday in Mullumbimby, New South Wales, Australia. The newspaper was founded in 1986 as ''The Brunswick Valley Echo'' by Nicholas Shand and David Lovejoy. Ove ...

'' since 2002, where she authors a column titled "Mandy Nolan's Soapbox", has been a contributor to the online publications Mamamia, The Hoopla, Lunchlady and

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

. Nolan has published several books including ''The Full Mandy'' (2020), ''Boyfriends We've All Had (and Shouldn’t Have)'' (2014), ''Home Truths'' (2015) and ''What I Would Do If I Were You: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Family Life'' (2011), and also collaborated with Ellen Briggs to publish ''Women Like Us: Feeling Overwhelmed, Overworked, Overweight And Over It?'' (2018).

Comedian

Nolan's first comedy show was in 1985 at Queensland University, where she was involved in a university show. Nolan has also collaborated to create and tour shows with fellow comedians Ellen Briggs, ''Women Like U''s, Akmal and Austen Tayshus, ''2020 Visio''n, and with musician Áine Tyrrell, ''Country Witches Association''. After the 2022 election, Nolan also created and performed the stand-up comedy show 'The Candidate'. Nolan started The Byron Bay Comedy Festival in collaboration with Ellen Briggs and Glenn Wright, and was the Festival Director for The Big Joke comedy festival in

Bangalow Bangalow is a small town in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia in Byron Shire. The town is north of Sydney and south of Brisbane, just off the Pacific Highway. It is on the Lands of the Bundjalung people. The town's ...

, NSW and a publicist for the Mullumbimby Music Festival.

Dementia Comedy Program

In 2007, Nolan was hired to work with carers of

dementia Dementia is a syndrome associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform activities of daily living, everyday activities. This typically invo ...

patients, but ended up developing a program of improvised performance,

role playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing ...

and theatre sports for people with dementia called ''Stand Up for Dementia''. Nolan facilitated the Stand Up for Dementia program across Australia and taught 20 new

facilitator A facilitator is a person who helps a Social group, group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives, during meetings or discussions. In doing so, the facilitator remains "neut ...

s how to work with those with dementia, with the support of a

federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

grant. The program resulted in an academic article, created by John Stevens, and international conference presentations on the results. The program was unable to continue without further government funding being provided. Nolan advocated for humour therapy for people with dementia on TEDxByronBay with Stand up for Dementia in 2010 and SBS's

Insight Insight is the understanding of a specific causality, cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of se ...

on the Dancing Dementia Episode in 2015. Nolan is also a supporter of the Dementia Inclusive Ballina, being the MC for the 2022 Dementia Update Luncheon and 2023 Symposium.

Teacher

Since 1997, Nolan has taught a

stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...

class at Byron Community College, having more than 1,500 graduating students, including

Hannah Gadsby Hannah Gadsby (born 12 January 1978) is an Australian comedian, writer, author and actor. They began their career in Australia after winning the national final of the Raw Comedy competition for new comedians in 2006. In 2018, their show '' Nanet ...

. Nolan has also facilitated

workshops such as ''Laugh Lines with Mandy Nolan'' at Byron Writers Festival and ''What if Jesus was married'' with

Akmal Saleh Akmal Saleh (, ) is an Egyptian-Australian comedian and actor. He was born in Egypt and arrived in Sydney with his family in 1975 at the age of 10. He has been performing comedy since the early 1990s and his live shows have toured comedy festiv ...

. Nolan also coaches individuals in opinion writing workshops through her ''Write to the bone workshops'' and her ''Authentic You Masterclasses'' with George Catsi.

Podcaster

Nolan has been the host of various

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s including ''Women Like Us - Mandy Nolan and Ellen Briggs'', Authentic You's ''The Daily Dos''e Mamamia's ''The Split'', and a guest on many more.

Artist

In her 20s and 30s, Nolan exhibited regularly to sold-out shows in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and

Byron Bay Byron Bay ( Minjungbal: ''Cavvanbah'') is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of New South Wales, Australia (in Bundjalung Country). It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjac ...

. In 2023, Nolan had a 'Made You Look, Made You Stare’

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

at Julian Edwards Fine Art Gallery.

Political career

Nolan attended university during a very politicised time in

, and would regularly attend anti- Joh Bjelke-Peterson rallies. Nolan was first preselected to stand as the Greens candidate for the federal division of Richmond at the 2022 election against the Labor Party incumbent

Justine Elliot Maria Justine Elliot (née Borsellino; born 29 July 1967) is an Australian politician. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and has served in the House of Representatives since the 2004 federal election, representing the New Sout ...

. Nolan finished with 25.27 percent of the primary vote, a swing of 4.95 percent. Incumbent Justine Elliot won reelection. Nolan was announced as the Greens candidate for the same division again in May 2023 and ran in the

. Her campaign was formally launched on 21 March 2025 and, in April, it was announced that she would appear first on the ballot after a randomised ballot draw. Labor incumbent Justine Elliot would win reelection in the 2025 election.

Community and charity work

Environment

Nolan has been an

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

and

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...

of the following charities and causes: * Bangalow Koalas * Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital * Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation * Human Nature

Health

Since 2021, Nolan has worked with Dr George Catsi, in collaboration with Northern NSW Local Health District, to create a podcast with the aim of reducing stigma in health care settings towards people who inject drugs (PWID), as a way of improving their wellbeing and treatment outcomes Nolan is also an ambassador for Adolescent Mental Health Service, Human Nature. In 2008, Nolan performed stand-up ''comedy show 'Shoot it From the Hip Replacement for seniors week.

Personal life

Nolan currently lives in

Mullumbimby file:BigThingsMullumbimby.jpg, Welcome sign in Mullumbimby Mullumbimby, locally nicknamed Mullum, is a town in the Byron Shire in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. It promotes itself as "The Biggest Little Town in Austra ...

, in the

Northern Rivers Northern Rivers is the most northeasterly Regions of New South Wales, region of the Australian state of New South Wales, located between north of the state capital, Sydney, and encompasses the catchments and fertile valleys of the Clarence Ri ...

region of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. She has five children and is married to academic John Stevens.

Books

* 2020: ''The Full Mandy'' by Mandy Nolan (ISBN 9780648780748) * 2018: ''Women Like Us: Feeling Overwhelmed, Overworked, Overweight And Over It?'' by Ellen Briggs and Mandy Nolan (ISBN 9780648100836) * 2015: ''Home Truths'' by Mandy Nolan (ISBN 9781925048377) * 2014: ''Boyfriends We've All Had (and Shouldn’t Have)'' by Mandy Nolan (ISBN 1921462825) * 2011: ''What I Would Do If I Were You: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Family Life'' (ISBN 9781925048131)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nolan, Mandy 1967 births Living people Women political candidates Australian Greens candidates Australian women comedians 21st-century Australian women writers Australian women journalists University of Queensland alumni