By Their Mentors You Will Know Them

 

Anthony Albanese (Pic courtesy Parliament of Australia)

One way of looking at the history and conduct of prime ministers in Australia is to consider their mentors.

Let's look in turn at mentors for Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese.

B. A. Santamaria, a prominent Catholic layman, and strident anti-Communist had a strong influence on Abbott. Many of Abbott's cultural views were modelled on Santamaria's proto-Fascism, particularly his opposition to the Republicans and his support of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.

B A Santamaria (Pic courtesy Catholic Weekly)

Abbott wrote a foreword to Alan Reid's novelisation of Santamaria's life (The Bandar Log) in 2015, and launched Gerard Henderson's biography in the same year.

Morrison's mentor was Hillsong Pastor Brian Houston. I write "was" because he has distanced himself from Houston since the latter was arrested on charges of concealing his father's sexual abuse of minors. There were also reports in 2013 and 2019 that he had engaged in inappropriate behaviour with two women associated with his church.

Brian Houston (Pic courtesy The Guardian)

Albanese's mentor was Tom Uren who was Deputy Leader of the federal ALP from 1975 until 1977, and served as a junior minister in the Hawke government from 1984 until 1987.

Tom Uren (Pic courtesy The Australian)

Abbott's mentor was a extreme right winger, and a militant Catholic. Morrison's was a disgraced evangelist. Tom Uren (Albanese's mentor) was an ex prisoner of war of the Japanese who worked on the Burma railway and witnessed the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945.

The public conduct of these three Prime Ministers is a study in contrasts.

Did this have anything to do with what they learned from their mentors?

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