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B. A. Santamaria | |
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 Santamaria, c. 1950s | |
| Born | Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria (1915-08-14)14 August 1915 |
| Died | 25 February 1998(1998-02-25) (aged 82)[1] |
| Burial place | Bundoora Cemetery[2] |
| Citizenship |
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| Alma mater | University of Melbourne |
| Political party | Labor (until 1955) |
| Children | 8 |
| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Australia |
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Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria (14 August 1915 – 25 February 1998), usually known asB. A. Santamaria orBob Santamaria and sometimes writing under the pseudonymJohn Williams,[3]: 323 was an AustralianRoman Catholicanti-communist political activist and journalist. He was a guiding influence in the founding of theDemocratic Labor Party (DLP), the party that split from theLabor Party (ALP) in the 1950s.
Santamaria was born on 14 August 1915 inBrunswick, Victoria. He was the first of five children born to Maria (née Costa) and Joseph Santamaria. His parents were Sicilian immigrants from the small island ofSalina, one of theAeolian Islands. His father had arrived in Australia in 1893 and became a grocer and fruiterer in Brunswick.[4]
Santamaria was educated at St Ambrose's Catholic Primary School inBrunswick, behind his father's shop, and later atSt Joseph's College inNorth Melbourne by theChristian Brothers. He finished his secondary education atSt Kevin's College as dux of the school. One of his teachers, Francis Maher, belonged to a newly founded Roman Catholic association, theCampion Society. Santamaria attended theUniversity of Melbourne, where he graduated in arts and law. He completed hisMaster of Arts degree with a thesis entitledItaly Changes Shirts: The Origins of Italian Fascism. Santamaria was a political activist from an early age who earned recognition as a leading Catholic student activist. During theSpanish Civil War, he was a strident supporter of theNationalist side.[citation needed]
Santamaria was married in 1939 and had eight children. In 1980 his wife, Helen, died. He later married Dorothy Jensen, his long-time secretary. His younger brother, Joseph (Joseph Natalino Santamaria; also known as Joe), was a Melbourne surgeon and prominent in the Roman Catholicbioethics movement.[5] His daughterBernadette Tobin, is a leading Catholic bioethicist,[6] and his sonJoseph Santamaria is an Australian jurist and a former judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria.
In 1936 he co-foundedThe Catholic Worker, a newspaper influenced by the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly theencyclicalRerum novarum ofPope Leo XIII. He was the first editor of the paper which declared itself opposed to both communism and capitalism. Although the group campaigned for the rights of workers and against what it saw as the excesses of capitalism, Santamaria came to see theCommunist Party of Australia, which in the 1940s made great advances in the Australian trade union movement, as the main enemy. In 1937 he was persuaded by ArchbishopDaniel Mannix to join the National Secretariat ofCatholic Action, a lay activist organisation.[citation needed]
During World War II, Santamaria gained an exemption from military service. In 1972Arthur Calwell, a leading CatholicLabor politician, confirmed that Santamaria had "dodged" war service after Mannix had approached him to gain the exemption.[7] When asked, Calwell stated "I want to put the record straight because apparently the Department of Defence cannot find any of the records, nor can the Department of Labour and National Service."[7] Santamaria and two other men (Maher and K. W. Mitchell[who?]) were, argued Mannix, "members of the Secretariat of Catholic Action and that their work was equivalent to that of a minister of religion." Calwell said 'I regret my part in it... I want the country to know that these three men who have been pestering and opposing and demonstrating against the Australian Labor Party for the last 30 years were people who dodged military service'.[7] He reflected on theVietnam War and noted that all three supported it and "conscription of men for military service", adding "I regret that these people who benefited from our generosity did not beget any children who went out to fight in the war in Vietnam. Their sons were exempted, all of them, because they were employed in reserve institutions as were their fathers."[7] Santamaria denied the allegation that he had ever sought an exemption.[8] and stated that 'if Mr Calwell repeated his statement outside of parliament he would take appropriate action'.[9] Calwell moderated his statements regarding Maher, but not on Mitchell or Santamaria. In May 1972, previously missing records were found confirming Calwell's version.[8][10]
In 1941, Santamaria founded the Catholic Social Studies Movement, generally known simply as "the Movement" or Groupers, which recruited Catholic activists to oppose the spread of communism, particularly in the trade unions.[11] The movement gained control of theIndustrial Groups in the unions, fighting the communists and gaining control of many unions.[12] This activity brought him into conflict not only with the Communist Party but with many left-wing Labor Party members, who favoured aunited front with the communists during the war. During the 1930s and 1940s Santamaria generally supported the conservative Catholic wing of the Labor Party, but as theCold War developed after 1945 his anti-communism drove him further away from Labor, particularly whenH.V. Evatt became Leader of the Labor Party in 1951.[citation needed]
Events leading to "The Split" included a well publicised incident in theParliament of Victoria. In October 1954, theSydney Sun-Herald reported on a letter sent by the Victorian Minister for Lands, Robert W. Holt, to the federal secretary of theAustralian Labor Party, a Mr J. Schmella, which the paper described as "probably as explosive, politically, as any document in Australia".[13] Holt stated "My charge is that the Victorian branch is controlled and directed in the main by one group or section through Mr. B. Santamaria ... My criticism is not personal. It is leveled against those ideas which are contrary to what I believe Labor policy to be. Moreover, I have been requested by my numerous and trusted friends, who happen to be Catholic, to fight against the influence of Mr. Santamaria and those he represents, when he seeks to implement his ideas through an abuse of a political movement, designed to serve a truly political purpose."[13]
Holt spoke of events the previous year and described attending a meeting of Santamaria's National Catholic Rural Movement Convention, following which he was, as Minister of Lands, approached by Santamaria andFrank Scully, where he was asked to use his position to makeCrown land available to "Italians with foreign capital". When he refused, "Santamaria stated that I might not be in the next parliament", and Scully agreed. Holt considered this "a direct threat" which was confirmed when anotherM.L.A. confided that there was 'pressure' to oppose him for party selection for his seat. He added that "subsequent events which happened during the selection ballot' had convinced him that the ALP's "Victorian branch is not free to implement Labor policy and connives with this method".[13] He concluded by stating his belief in:
a party machine which permits the true expression of opinion of its members, regardless of who or what they may be. The only requirement is loyalty to Labor ideals and principles. This is not possible in the present circumstances...[13]
Holt introduced the Land Bill without Santamaria's desired advantage and it was at first amended by another ALP member, then defeated, amended again and passed – with what Santamaria wanted – after two Liberal party members "switched sides".[13] In December 1954, Santamaria launched a suit against Holt forlibel, citing the letter published in-full by theSun-Herald.[14] The libel action was withdrawn, without explanation, in April 1955.[15]
In 1954 Evatt publicly blamed "the Groupers" for Labor's defeat in that year's federal election, and after a tumultuous National Conference inHobart in 1955, Santamaria's parliamentary followers were expelled from the Labor Party. Theresulting split (now usually called "The Split", although there have been several other "splits" in Labor history) brought down the Labor government ofJohn Cain senior in Victoria. In Victoria, Mannix strongly supported Santamaria, but inNew South Wales,Norman Cardinal Gilroy, the first Australian-born Roman Catholic prelate, opposed him, favouring the traditional alliance between the Church and Labor. Gilroy's influence in Rome helped to end official Church support for the Groupers. In January 1955, Santamaria used Mannix as his witness to the statement, "There is no Catholic organisation seeking to dominate the Labor Party or any other political party ... So that there will be no equivocation, Catholics are not associated with any other secular body seeking to dominate the Labor Party or any other political party."[16]
Santamaria made this statement when he denied charges from the general secretary of the Australian Workers' Union (Mr T Dougherty) that the "No. 2-man in the Victorian ALP" (Frank McManus), the "No. 2-man in the NSW Labor Party" (J. Kane) and the "secretary of the Australian Rules Football Association of Queensland" (Mr Polgrain) were Santamaria's "top lieutenants inThe Movement". For his part, McManus suggested that Dougherty "appeared to have contracted an ailment from one of his political colleagues ... the chief symptom of this ailment was that the sufferer believed he was always detecting conspiracy theories".[16]
Santamaria founded a new organisation no longer an organ of Catholic Action, theNational Civic Council (NCC), and edited its newspaper,News Weekly, for many years. His followers, known as Groupers, continued to control a number of important unions. Those expelled from the Labor Party formed a new party, theDemocratic Labor Party (DLP), dedicated to opposing both Communism and the Labor Party, which they said was controlled by Communist sympathisers. Santamaria never joined the DLP but was one of its guiding influences.[17][18]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Santamaria regularly warned of the dangers of communism in Southeast Asia, and supportedSouth Vietnam and the United States in theVietnam War. He founded theAustralian Family Association and theThomas More Centre (for Traditional Catholicism) to extend the work of the NCC. However, his political role gradually declined. The death of the 99-year-old Archbishop Mannix (in 1963) ended the Roman Catholic Church's support for the NCC, even in Victoria. In 1974 the DLP lost all its seats in theSenate, and was wound up a few years later. Santamaria ran the NCC in a highly personal and (according to his critics) autocratic way, and in 1982 there was a serious split in the organisation, with most of the trade unionists leaving it.
The first of four unions disaffiliated after the split of 1955, attempted to return at the ALP Victorian State Conference in 1983.[19] TheFederated Clerks' Union and three others similarly aligned 'right-wing' unions – theShop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, theFederated Ironworkers' Association of Australia and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners – had their re-affiliation cases considered by a special Victorian ALP committee of ten which split on the decision 5 against 5 and had submitted separate reports to the State Conference. The Federated Clerks' case, 'after a bitter and at times acrimonious 3 and a 1/2-hour debate', which was 'centred on alleged links' with Santamaria, the National Civic Council, and the Industrial Action Fund, was defeated at the State Conference by 289 votes to 189.[19] It was noted in a news report of the time that all four were likely to appeal to the federal ALP executive and that they had the support of then Prime MinisterBob Hawke.[19] The ALP federal executive supported the re-affiliation before the 1985 Victorian State Conference[20] while two of the unions were refused re-affiliation in the Northern Territory later that year.[21] Ultimately, all four returned as ALP affiliated unions in some form; the Federated Clerks' Union amalgamated into the affiliatedAustralian Services Union in 1993, theShop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association is a current ALP affiliated union, while theFederated Ironworkers' Association of Australia and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners amalgamated with the affiliatedAustralian Workers' Union.[22]
But Santamaria's personal stature continued to grow, through his regular column inThe Australian newspaper and his regular television spot,Point of View (he was given free air time byFrank Packer, owner of theNine Network). He was one of the most articulate voices of Australian conservatism for more than 20 years.[23]
According to historians David McKnight andC. J. Coventry, Santamaria worked for the United States of America as an informer in the 1960s and 1970s discreetly providing information about Australia to diplomatic officials.[24]
He was offered a knighthood byMalcolm Fraser but declined it.[25]
Santamaria also opposed what he saw as liberal and non-traditional trends in the Catholic Church following theSecond Vatican Council (which he had sought to attend as an independent observer), and founded a magazine through his Thomas More Centre, calledAD 2000,[26] to argue for traditionalist views. He welcomedPope John Paul II's return to conservatism in many areas.
The conservative Archbishop of Melbourne,George Pell, a staunch supporter of Santamaria, delivered thepanegyric at his funeral, which was held atSt. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. Santamaria had died from an inoperable brain tumour at age 82 at Caritas Christi Hospice,Kew, Victoria. On his death Santamaria was praised by conservatives for his opposition to communism, but also by some on the left (such as veteran left-wing Labor ex-Cabinet MinisterClyde Cameron) and by social democrats (such as former Governor-GeneralBill Hayden) for his consistent critique of unrestricted capitalism.[citation needed]
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