Австралиялық саяси белсенді және журналист Б.А. Сантамария өмірі мен қызметі

Australian political activist and journalist

Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria (14 August 1915 – 25 February 1998), usually known as B. A. Santamaria or Bob Santamaria and sometimes writing under the pseudonym John Williams, was an Australian Roman Catholic anti communist political activist and journalist. He was a guiding influence in the founding of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), the party that split from the Labor Party (ALP) in the 1950s.

Santamaria was born in Melbourne. The son of a greengrocer who was an immigrant from the Aeolian Islands in Italy, Santamaria was educated at St Ambrose's Catholic Primary School in Brunswick, behind his father's shop, and later at St Joseph's College in North Melbourne by the Christian Brothers. He finished his secondary education at St Kevin's College as dux of the school. One of his teachers, Francis Maher, belonged to a newly founded Roman Catholic association, the Campion Society. Santamaria attended the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in arts and law. He completed his Master of Arts degree with a thesis entitled Italy 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 the Spanish Civil War, he was a strident supporter of the Nationalist side. 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 Catholic bioethics movement. His daughter Bernadette Tobin, is a leading Catholic bioethicist, and his son Joseph Santamaria is an Australian jurist and a former judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

In 1936 he co founded The Catholic Worker, a newspaper influenced by the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the encyclical Rerum novarum of Pope 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 the Communist 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 Archbishop Daniel Mannix to join the National Secretariat of Catholic Action, a lay activist organisation. During World War II, Santamaria gained an exemption from military service. In 1972 Arthur Calwell, a leading Catholic Labor politician, confirmed that Santamaria had "dodged" war service after Mannix had approached him to gain the exemption. 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." and stated that 'if Mr Calwell repeated his statement outside of parliament he would take appropriate action'. Calwell moderated his statements regarding Maher, but not on Mitchell or Santamaria. In May 1972, previously missing records were found confirming Calwell's version. 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. The movement gained control of the 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 1940s 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 H. V. Evatt became Leader of the Labor Party in 1951.

Events leading to "The Split" included a well publicised incident in the Parliament of Victoria. In October 1954, the Sydney Sun Herald reported on a letter sent by the Victorian Minister for Lands, Robert W. Holt, to the federal secretary of the Australian Labor Party, a Mr J. Schmella, which the paper described as "probably as explosive, politically, as any document in Australia". 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." The libel action was withdrawn, without explanation, in April 1955. In 1954 Evatt publicly blamed "the Groupers" 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 government of John Cain senior in Victoria. In Victoria, Dr Mannix strongly supported Santamaria, but in New 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 Dr 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." 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 in The 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". The Federated Clerks' Union and three others similarly aligned 'right wing' unions – the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Federated 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. while two of the unions were refused re affiliation in the Northern Territory later that year. Ultimately, all four returned as ALP affiliated unions in some form; the Federated Clerks' Union amalgamated into the affiliated Australian Services Union in 1993, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association is a current ALP affiliated union, while the Federated Ironworkers' Association of Australia and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners amalgamated with the affiliated Australian Workers' Union. 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 Frank Packer, owner of the Nine Network). He was one of the most articulate voices of Australian conservatism for more than 20 years. According to historians David McKnight and C. 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. He was offered a knighthood by Malcolm Fraser but declined it.

Santamaria also opposed what he saw as liberal and non traditional trends in the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council (which he had sought to attend as an independent observer), and founded a magazine through his Thomas More Centre, called AD 2000, to argue for traditionalist views. He welcomed Pope John Paul II's return to conservatism in many areas. The conservative Archbishop of Melbourne, George Cardinal Pell, a staunch supporter of Santamaria, delivered the panegyric at his funeral, which was held at St. 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 Minister Clyde Cameron) and by social democrats (such as former Governor General Bill Hayden) for his consistent critique of unrestricted capitalism.