Pat Dodson

Patrick Lionel Djargun Dodson (born 29 January 1948) is an Australian politician and activist. He was appointed as a replacement to fill a casual vacancy in the Australian Senate for Western Australia. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party. He is a Yawuru elder from Broome, Western Australia. He has been chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and a Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. He was briefly a Roman Catholic priest. He was the winner of the 2008 Sydney Peace Prize and the 2009 John Curtin Medallist. His is the brother of Mick Dodson. Appointment to Senate On 2 March 2016, Dodson was announced as the replacement for Joe Bullock as a Labor Senator for Western Australia, following Bullock's resignation. The Parliament of Western Australia appointed Dodson to the Australian Senate on 2 May 2016. Early life Dodson was born on 29 January 1948 in Broome. His father, John "Snowy" Dodson, was born in Launceston, Tasmania and his mother, Patricia, was an Indigenous Australian. The family moved to Katherine in the Northern Territory when Pat was two, to escape Western Australian laws banning race-mix families. The Dodson children were orphaned at the deaths of both parents only three months apart in 1960. He and his brother Mick were made wards of the state, but their aunt and uncle decided they should accept a scholarship to study at Monivae College in Hamilton, Victoria, where Dodson became head prefect and captain of football.