Pat O'Shane

Pat O'Shane AM
Chancellor of the University of New England
In office 1994–2003
Preceded by	Rob Robertson-Cuninghame
Succeeded by	John Cassidy
Personal details
Born	(1941-06-19) 19 June 1941 Mossman, Queensland
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	University of Queensland University of New South Wales
Profession	Teacher Barrister Public Servant Jurist

Patricia June "Pat" O'Shane, AM (born 19 June 1941 in Mossman, Queensland), is an indigenous Australian of the Kunjandji clan of the Yalangi people. She was a teacher, barrister, public servant, jurist, Aboriginal activist, and was Australia's first Aboriginal magistrate, serving the Local Court in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia between 1986 until her retirement in 2013.

O'Shane was the first Aboriginal teacher in Queensland; the first Aboriginal to earn a law degree; the first Aboriginal barrister; and the first woman and indigenous person to be the head of a government department in Australia, the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs.

Biography

O'Shane was born in Mossman on 19 June 1941 to Gladys, an Aboriginal woman, and her husband Patrick O'Shane, an Irish boxer and unionist. O'Shane's mother moved the family from Mossman to Cairns to enable her children to receive a good education. O'Shane ended up the only Indigenous Australian child in her age group graduating from her high school, gained a scholarship and studied at Teachers' College and the University of Queensland, before teaching at Cairns High School for eight years. When her mother died O'Shane went into a deep depression and was hospitalised. On an Aboriginal Study Grant, O'Shane studied law at the University of New South Wales, graduated in 1976, and was admitted to the New South Wales bar.

O'Shane began practicing law as a barrister with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Sydney and then in Central Australia, O'Shane was head of the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs from 1981 to 1986, before her appointment as a magistrate. She was the Chancellor of the University of New England between 1994 and 2003.

In 2013 O'Shane was awarded a Deadly Award for lifetime achievement in leadership, being praised as a woman who "blazed a path for others to follow . . . she is a genuine and inspiring role model for others". Along with fellow Deadly 2013 winner Archie Roach, she used the win to call for an end to the Northern Territory Intervention.

O'Shane retired as a magistrate in January 2013, taking long service leave until she reached compulsory retirement age in mid-June.

Australian Constitutional Convention

O'Shane was elected to the Australian Constitutional Convention 1998, which considered the issue of Australia becoming a republic. She advocated strongly for an Australian republic. In her opening address, she expressed a want for modification based on what she perceived as historical injustice and inadequacies within the Australian Constitution:

That modern Australia, the Australia that has developed since 26 January 1788 as distinct from the Australia of my ancestors, has a constitutional monarchy is a direct unambiguous consequence of our origins as a colony of Britain — a penal colony at that. As such, it was underwritten with the values of power, privilege, elitism, oppression and dispossession. It was blatantly exclusionary. It is no wonder then that the Australian Constitution, designed to institute a constitutional monarchy as the system of government in this country, is such an inadequate and uncertain instrument as it is.

Academic criticism

A study in 2012 by Michael Eburn and Ruth Townsend of the Australian National University College of Law examined 56 Supreme Court appeals of cases heard before O'Shane between 1999 and 2012. Of the 56 appeals, 35 (62.5%) were upheld. Of the 16 criminal cases included, 14 appeals were upheld. Eburn and Townsend wrote: "The Supreme Court has found that O'Shane had got the law wrong in 14 out of the 16 criminal cases ... In one case she dismissed a charge even though the accused had entered a plea of guilty." Supreme Court judges criticised O'Shane for "denying the prosecution procedural fairness," and "failure to comprehend the basis of the prosecution case or the evidence before her, use of intemperate language and making numerous errors of law." Eburn and Townsend compared the records of two other magistrates with similar experience and found only eight and nine appeals against them respectively. They called for O'Shane's resignation.

Awards and honours

O'Shane was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia) in 1984, for public service in the field of Aboriginal welfare. She was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 for service to Australian society and higher education. In 1998 she was voted one of Australia's living treasures by the National Trust.

At the Deadly Awards 2013, O'Shane was presented with the Marcia Langton Award For Lifetime Achievement In Leadership.

External links

• Fighting for justice

Academic offices
Preceded by Rob Robertson-Cuninghame	Chancellor of the University of New England 1994–2003	Succeeded by John Cassidy