Frank Brennan

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Frank Brennan SJ AO, a Jesuit priest and lawyer, is Professor of Law in the Institute of Legal Studies, at the Australian Catholic University. He has also been the Director of the Uniya Jesuit Social Justice Centre in Sydney. He is the son of Sir Gerard Brennan, a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

He is an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to Aboriginal Australians (1995). With Pat Dodson he shared the inaugural ACFOA Human Rights Award (1996). His contact and ivolvement with Aboriginal Australians began early in his priestly ministry. In 1975 he worked in the inner Sydney parish of Redfern with priest activist Fr Ted Kennedy, where he also met and worked with Mum (Shirl) Smith among others who were founding Indigenous Australian legal, health and political initiatives.

In 1997, he was Rapporteur at the Australian Reconciliation Convention. In 1998 he was named a Living National Treasure during his involvement in the Wik debate and was appointed an Ambassador for Reconciliation by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.

In 2001-02 he spent 18 months in East Timor as Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service and was awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal for that work.