Australian Biography: Men

Franco Belgiorno-Nettis (1915–2006) was born in Cassano delle Murge, Italy.

He migrated to Australia in the 1950s and founded the engineering company Transfield.

Born on Ukerebagh Island in northern NSW, Neville Bonner (1922–1999) started his working life as a ringbarker, canecutter and stockman.

'Nugget' Coombs (1906–1997) was Kalamunda, Western Australia.

Smoky Dawson (1914–2008) was born in Warrnambool, Victoria.

He was Australia's first cowboy and a pioneer of Australian country music.

Hayes Gordon (1920–1999) was born in Boston, USA.

He moved to Australia in 1952, performing lead roles in the shows Kismet and Annie Get Your Gun.

Professor Donald Horne (1921–2005) was one of Australia's foremost academics, historians and philosophers.

Phillip Law (1912–2010) was born in Tallangatta, Victoria.

He showed early academic ability and, at the age of 16, became a teacher.

Born into a working class Catholic family in 1915, 'Diamond' Jim McClelland (1915–1999) worked as a lawyer, specialising in industrial relations, after serving in the army during the Second World W

Jack Mundey (1929–2020) became a national figure in the early 1970s when he led the Builders' Labourers Federation's famous 'green bans'.

In a life of exceptional achievement, Charles Perkins (1936–2000) – soccer star, university graduate, Aboriginal activist and Canberra bureaucrat – was often in strife.

Bartholomew Augustine (Bob) Santamaria (1915–1998) was a political activist, ardent anti-Communist, committed anti-feminist and devout Catholic.

Victor Smorgon (1913–2009) was born in Heidelberg, Ukraine.

Artist Albert Tucker (1914–1999) was born in Melbourne.

Ray Whitrod (1915–2003) came to national prominence in 1976 when he resigned as Queensland's Commissioner of Police as a protest against corruption.