Pat O’Shane
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Pat O'Shane AM |
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|---|---|
| Chancellor of the University of New England | |
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In office 1994–2003 |
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| Preceded by | Rob Robertson-Cuninghame |
| Succeeded by | John Cassidy |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
19 June 1941 Mossman, Queensland |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Alma mater | |
| Profession |
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Patricia June "Pat" O'Shane AM, (born 19 June 1941 in Mossman, Queensland), is an indigenous Australian of the Kunjandji clan of the Kuku Yalanji people. She was a teacher, barrister, public servant, jurist, Aboriginal activist, and was Australia's first Aboriginal magistrate, serving the Local Court in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia between 1986 until her retirement in 2013.
O'Shane was the first female Aboriginal teacher in Queensland; the first Aboriginal to earn a law degree; the first Aboriginal barrister; and the first woman and indigenous person to be the head of a government department in Australia, the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs.
O'Shane was born in Mossman on 19 June 1941 to Gladys, an Aboriginal woman, and her husband Patrick O'Shane, an Irish boxer and unionist. O'Shane's mother moved the family from Mossman to Cairns to enable her children to receive a good education. O'Shane ended up the only Indigenous Australian child in her age group graduating from her high school, gained a scholarship and studied at Teachers' College and the University of Queensland, before teaching at Cairns High School for eight years. When her mother died O'Shane went into a deep depression and was hospitalised. On an Aboriginal Study Grant, O'Shane studied law at the University of New South Wales, graduated in 1976, and was admitted to the New South Wales bar.
O'Shane began practicing law as a barrister with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Sydney and then in Central Australia, O'Shane was head of the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs from 1981 to 1986, before her appointment as a magistrate. She was the Chancellor of the University of New England between 1994 and 2003.
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