FATHER FRANK BRENNAN PAYS TRIBUTE TO SENATOR PAT DODSON

Senator Pat Dodson and Father Frank Brennan. Credit: Supplied.

Jesuit priest and legal academic Father Frank Brennan has paid tribute to outgoing Senator Pat Dodson.

Mr Dodson, a Yawuru elder, announced this week he would retire on 26 January next year, after serving as a senator for seven years.

Father Brennan said Senator Dodson had made many major achievements, including in his role as part of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

“When Pat was appointed a Commissioner, to have an Aboriginal person of undoubted integrity to be there to be able to listen to the evidence as to what had occurred with these deaths in custody, I think that helped to transform that Royal Commission and make it much more credible, particularly with Aboriginal Australians, and I think that was very important,” he said.

Listen to Father Frank Brennan speak to Marion Cheedy about Senator Dodson’s career: