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Patrick Dodson has always had the type of generous spirit that has no wish for acknowledgment, though recognition has followed him through his storied life.<\/p>\n
Now, aged 75 and exhausted by cancer and its draining treatment, he has announced his retirement from parliament.<\/p>\n
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Patrick Dodson\u2019s signature: a black hat banded with the colours of the Aboriginal flag, set off with a great flowing white beard.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Fairfax<\/cite><\/p>\n Sixty years ago, as orphaned boys from northern Australia in danger of joining the stolen generations, he and his brother Mick were given scholarships and brought south to Monivae College, a boarding school in Hamilton, Victoria.<\/p>\n There, Patrick\u2019s physical and emotional strength that would eventually take him to the Senate became so obvious he was elected captain of the school.<\/p>\n The summers were hot, and the students regularly walked half an hour to the town\u2019s swimming pool.<\/p>\n Billy Blomeley, of Gippsland these days, was a first-year student who recalls he was \u201cway out of my comfort zone \u2013 I didn\u2019t even know how to access my pocket money\u201d. Dodson, himself a young man with scarce pocket money, noticed the little boy standing alone on the footpath.<\/p>\n Dodson, right, with from left Gatjil Djerrkura, Dr Lowitja O\u2019Donoghue, Peter Yu and Professor Marcia Langton in front of Buckingham Palace in 1999 after meeting Queen Elizabeth II. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cHe simply presented me with an ice cream,\u201d Blomeley says, \u201cI have always remembered this little act of kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n Dodson was captain of the school\u2019s powerful 1st XVIII football team, too \u2013 so talented he could have gone on to play with any of the leading VFL (later AFL) clubs.<\/p>\n Instead, he felt called to the Catholic priesthood, believing he could assist his people spiritually and physically as a missionary.<\/p>\n Dodson was Australia\u2019s first recognised Aboriginal Catholic priest.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Source unknown<\/cite><\/p>\n As Australia\u2019s first recognised Aboriginal Catholic priest \u2013 although he always believed there must have been others \u2013 Dodson fell afoul of the church hierarchy in the Northern Territory when he encouraged his flock to combine their traditional culture with Christianity.<\/p>\n By the early 1980s, he couldn\u2019t reconcile his own cultural beliefs with Catholicism \u2013 he believed ancient Aboriginal rituals celebrated the same spiritual forces as those worshipped by Christians \u2013 and quit the priesthood.<\/p>\n It tipped him into a life at the forefront of Aboriginal causes.<\/p>\n The clerical collar gave way to what would become the Dodson signature: a black hat banded with the colours of the Aboriginal flag, set off with a great flowing white beard.<\/p>\n While others spoke loudly and sometimes angrily, Dodson was a listener and thoughtful storyteller.<\/p>\n These were the attributes that made him, in 1987, a commissioner of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which produced a report that revealed the stories of institutional discrimination and depths of despair that afflicted large parts of Aboriginal Australia.<\/p>\n In 1991, he was the natural choice to become the founding chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. His open-handed approach and the gravitas he brought to the position earned him the lasting title of \u201cfather of reconciliation\u201d.<\/p>\n But he found himself in a testy relationship with then-prime minister John Howard, and was unable to support legislation the government introduced to reduce the impact of High Court findings on native title.<\/p>\n He quit the council in 1998, declaring \u201cI fear for the spirit of this country\u201d.<\/p>\n Dodson found himself in a testy relationship with then-prime minister John Howard.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Mike Bowers<\/cite><\/p>\n He spent 2010 to 2016 helping lay out a path towards an Indigenous Voice to parliament as co-chair of the government\u2019s Expert Panel for Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n In 2016, Dodson, who had previously resisted attempts to harness him to institutional politics, was appointed to the Australian Senate representing Western Australia \u2013 the state from which his parents fled with a baby Patrick in 1950 to escape laws banning mixed-race families.<\/p>\n When Labor won government last year, Dodson was made Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.<\/p>\n But cancer robbed him of an active role and meant his nationally respected voice was missing from the crucial final months of the Voice debate.<\/p>\n Dodson addresses the National Press Club via videolink from Broome in October.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Alex Ellinghausen<\/cite><\/p>\n He was diagnosed shortly before Easter with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which became life-threatening when he developed an infection of the oesophagus. His health became further complicated when he was attacked by shingles.<\/p>\n The snowy beard was gone, and the famous hat sat on a bald head when he eventually reappeared in a televised address to the National Press Club.<\/p>\n Shortly before the referendum, Dodson, ever the optimist, told this masthead he believed the Australian people would recognise \u201cthe goodness and the justice\u201d of what the Voice could achieve.<\/p>\n It was not to be.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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