B. A. (Bob) Santamaria was one of the most articulate voices of Australian conservatism for more than twenty years. He was involved in founding the Democratic Labor Party which helped keep the Liberal-Country Party coalition in power for seventeen years.
Santamaria was the son of Sicilian migrants who settled in Brunswick, Victoria. He was educated at St Joseph’s College Melbourne, St Kevin’s College, and the University of Melbourne where he graduated in law.
Throughout his career Santamaria gained wide audiences and became influential through his use of print and electronic media. In 1936 Santamaria was one of the founders of the Catholic Worker newspaper and later News Weekly. His television program Point of View provided another means of communication.
In 1937, at the invitation of Archbishop Daniel Mannix, Santamaria joined the secretariat of Catholic Action. He was director of Catholic Action from 1947–54 and became President of the Catholic Social Movement in 1943.
The movement (renamed National Civic Council in 1957) was a dominant force in Australian politics, working openly to rid the labor movement of communist influences. The Democratic Labor Party, which was bought into being by the National Civic Council, ensured a conservative Federal government from 1955 to 1972.
Later in his life he began to write against the dangers of ‘monopoly capitalism’ and was consistent in his view that this represented as great a threat to civil society as communism.
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