Mick Dodson

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Professor Michael James "Mick" Dodson AM, (b. 10 April 1950 in Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia) is an Indigenous Australian leader, a member of the Yawuru peoples in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia. His brother is Patrick Dodson, also a noted Aboriginal leader.

Following his parents death he boarded at Monivae College, Hamilton, Victoria. He graduated in law from Monash University in 1978.

He has been a prominent advocate of land rights and other issues affecting indigenous peoples in Australia and globally and has extensive involvement in United Nations indigenous peoples forums.

[edit] Career

He is Director of the Australian National University's National Centre for Indigenous Studies and Chairman of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

He was Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1993-1998).

He worked with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service from 1976 to 1981, when he became a barrister at the Victorian Bar. He joined the Northern Land Council as Senior Legal Adviser in 1984 and became Director of the Council in 1990.

From August 1988 to October 1990 Mick was Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.