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 anti-communist political activist and journalist. A Roman Catholic, 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 on 14 August 1915 in Brunswick, 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 of Salina, one of the Aeolian Islands. His father had arrived in Australia in 1893 and became a grocer and fruiterer in Brunswick.
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." Santamaria and two other men (Maher and K. W. Mitchell) 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'. He reflected on the Vietnam 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." Santamaria denied the allegation that he had ever sought an exemption. 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.
Labor split and the National Civic Council
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."
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 and Frank Scully, where he was asked to use his position to make Crown 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 another M.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". 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...
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". In December 1954, Santamaria launched a suit against Holt for libel, citing the letter published in-full by the Sun-Herald. 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, 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 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."