B.A. Santamaria

Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria (14 August, 1915 - 25 February, 1998), (known in public as B.A. Santamaria and in private as "Bob"), Australian political activist and journalist, was one of the most influential political figures in recent Australian history, but never held public office or joined a political party. He was a highly divisive figure, inspiring great devotion from his followers and intense hatred from his enemies. He regarded his own career as a failure, but on his death was widely praised for his lifelong opposition to Communism.

Santamaria was born in Melbourne, the son of a greengrocer who was an immigrant from Sicily. He was educated at Catholic schools and at Melbourne University, where he graduated in law. He was a political activist from an early age, becoming a leading Catholic student activist and speaking in support of Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War. He also wrote and spoke in support of Mussolini's regime in Italy, but later denied that he had ever been a fascist. He always disliked and opposed Hitler and Nazism.

In 1936 Santamaria was one of the founders of the Catholic Worker, a newspaper influenced by the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII. Although the Catholic Worker group campaigned for the rights of workers and against what it saw as the excesses of capitalism, Santamaria came to see the Communist Party of Australia, which in the 1930s made great advances in the Australian trade union movement, as the main enemy. In 1937, at the invitation of Archbishop Daniel Mannix, he joined the National Secretariat of Catholic Action, a lay Catholic anti-Communist organisation.

During World War II Santamaria gained an exemption from military service (it was later alleged that this was obtained through the political influence of Arthur Calwell, a leading Catholic Labor politician, but both men later denied this). In 1941 he founded the Catholic Social Studies Movement, generally known simply as "the Movement," which recruited Catholic activists to oppose the spread of Communism, particularly in the trade unions. The Movement formed clandestine Industrial Groups in the unions, fighting the Communists and gaining control of many unions.

This activity brought him into conflict not only with the Communist Party but with many left-wing Labor Party members, who favoured a united front with the Communists during the war. During the 1930s and '40s Santamaria generally supported the conservative Catholic wing of the Labor Party, but as the Cold War developed after 1945 his anti-Communism drove him further away from Labor, particularly when Dr H.V. Evatt became Leader of the Labor Party in 1951.

In 1954 Evatt publicly the blamed the Movement for Labor's defeat in that year's federal election, and after a tumultuous National Conference in Hobart in 1955, Santamaria's parliamentary followers were expelled from the Labor Party. The resulting split (now usually called The Split, although there have been several other "splits" in Labor history) brought down the Labor governments in Victoria and Queensland. In Victoria Mannix threw the resources of the Church behind Santamaria, but in New South Wales, Norman Cardinal Gilroy opposed him, favouring the traditional alliance between the Church and Labor.

Gilroy's influence in Rome ended official Church support for the Movement. Santamaria founded a new organisation, the National 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, the Democratic 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 its unofficial leader and guiding influence.

During the 1960s and '70s Santamaria's political role gradually declined. The death of Archbishop Mannix in 1963 ended Church support for the NCC even in Victoria, and in 1974 the DLP lost all its seats in the Australian Senate 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 the mid 1980s there was a serious split in the organisation, with most of the trade unionists leaving. The Grouper-controlled unions then returned to their Labor affiliation.

But Santamaria's personal stature continued to grow, through his regular column in The Australian newspaper and his regular television spot, Point of View (he was given free air time by Sir Frank Packer, owner of the Nine Network). A skilled journalist and broadcaster, he was one of the most articulate voices of Australian conservatism for more than 20 years. He was greatly admired by conservative politicians such as Malcolm Fraser and John Howard.

Santamaria had the satisfaction of living to see the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the world Communist movement. But he was also hostile to free-market capitalism, and to abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia and other liberal trends of the modern world. Politically he could best be described as a Christian Democrat, a political tradition which has never taken root in secular Australia. He came to despise politicians of all parties who failed to oppose these things, and towards the end of his life said several times that his political career had been a complete failure.

Santamaria also bitterly opposed what he saw as liberal trends in the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council, and founded a magazine, A.D. 2000, to argue for traditionalist views. He welcomed Pope John Paul II's return to conservatism in many areas. In his last years the conservative Archbishop of Melbourne, George Pell, reconciled him to the Church. On his death Santamaria was praised by conservatives for his opposition to Communism, but also by some on the left for his later campaigning against unrestricted capitalism.

Santamaria married twice and had eight children, several of whom became prominent in various professions, but none of whom followed him into political activism. His brother Joseph Santamaria was a well-known Melbourne surgeon and was prominent in the Catholic bioethics movement.