Patrick Dodson
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Senator Patrick Dodson |
|
|---|---|
| Senator for Western Australia | |
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Assumed office 2 May 2016 |
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| Preceded by | Joe Bullock |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
20 January 1948 Broome, WA, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party | Australian Labor Party |
Patrick Lionel Djargun Dodson (born 20 January 1948) is a Yawuru man from Broome, Western Australia, the former chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, a former Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, former Roman Catholic priest and a Senator for Western Australia. He was the winner of the 2008 Sydney Peace Prize the 2009 John Curtin Medallist. His brother is Mick Dodson, also a national Indigenous Australian leader.
On 2 March 2016, it was announced that Dodson would be endorsed as a 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.
Dodson was born on 20 January 1948 in Broome. His father, Snowy Dodson, was Irish-Australian and his mother, Patricia, was indigenous Australian. The family moved to Katherine in the Northern Territory when Pat was two, to escape Western Australian laws about mixed-race 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. After completing his schooling, Patrick enrolled to study for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College, Melbourne and was ordained in the order of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in May 1975. He later left the priesthood due to conflict over the balance and blend of Catholicism and Aboriginal spiritual belief.
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