Bill Shorten announces Indigenous leader Pat Dodson his pick to replace Joe Bullock

Written on the 2 March 2016

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has put forward "the father of reconciliation" Patrick Dodson as the replacement for outgoing Western Australian senator Joe Bullock.

Cheered on by a large throng of Labor MPs, Mr Shorten said the appointment would bring "credit not only to Labor but to the Senate and the Parliament as a whole".

Mr Dodson, former chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and commissioner into Aboriginal deaths in custody, said he accepted the offer after "deep thought".

"The phone call came as a surprise and it took me a little while to adjust to the idea that you proposed," he told Mr Shorten at a press conference in Canberra on Wednesday.

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Image: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Pat Dodson during a joint press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday 2 March 2016. Photo: Alex Ellinghause

Source: Sydney Morning Herald