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which the Territory’s mining industry was later based. He also became frustrated by government red tape and with
Territorians being treated as ‘second class citizens’, administered by distant bureaucrats. Brennan decided to enter
the political arena and thus bring about some changes.
He first stood for the seat of Batchelor in the Northern Territory Legislative Council in 1953 when he was opposed
by a Labor candidate, the well-known author Tom Ronan, who narrowly defeated him. In 1955 Ronan, who was
unhappy with members’ conditions, resigned and Brennan was elected as an independent with a comfortable
majority. He wasted no time in making clear his views, and although he was not the most articulate of members,
his blunt speeches inspired other Councillors to take stronger action. In his maiden speech he gave a clear message
to Canberra and the public: ‘Mr President, the people of the Territory are disgusted with the existence of this
undemocratic Council, this farcical institution... if Gilbert and Sullivan were alive today they wouldn’t write an
operetta called Madame Butterfly but one based on the way the NT is governed...Travellers...are amazed to learn
that we, a civilised community, can tolerate such a Council. It is the only part of the British Commonwealth in
which 95 percent of the electors are literate and in which such a body exists.’
One of the most dramatic examples of Brennan’s and the other elected members’ determination to achieve self
government for the Territory occurred in April 1958 when all elected members of the Council resigned their seats
over what they regarded as lack of action on the part of the federal government to address the issue of political reform
for the Territory. Public support for their stance was made very clear when in the ensuing election all members
were returned unopposed except for L H Purkiss of Tennant Creek, who was returned with a large majority.
Brennan was elected as Member for Elsey in 1961 and during that year was again part of a Territory delegation
that went to Canberra to meet the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, and the Attorney General, Sir Garfield
Barwick, to ask for more self government and greater Territory representation in the federal parliament.
The meeting did not achieve much and in December 1961 Brennan resigned from the Legislative Council to
stand unsuccessfully as an independent for the Territory’s House of Representatives seat. In the February 1962
Legislative Council election, Brennan regained his former seat of Elsey.
In the April sittings of that year the Long Service Leave Bill, which Brennan had introduced two years earlier,
was finally passed, highlighting the fact that most social welfare measures had to be introduced by elected members
because the Official Councillors failed to do so. Fred Walker, Clerk of the Council, later commented that Brennan
was one of the first elected members to realise that it was preferable to introduce a badly drafted bill than no bill
at all.
In 1964 Brennan was again part of a delegation to Canberra seeking constitutional reform but his behaviour on
this occasion caused some embarrassment to the other members. Brennan, who was apparently absent for much
of the delegation’s meeting with Commonwealth ministers, refused to agree to a press release which the ministers
and other delegates jointly handed out. To the delight of the press, he produced his own colourful version. Some
analysts have argued that Brennan’s credibility suffered considerably from this incident and there was some support
for the proposition that he was a liability to the elected members in their battle to be accepted as responsible people
capable of providing a stable government for the Territory. As Walker has written, ‘Brennan exemplified the best
and worst aspects of a politician. On the one hand he was attentive to the needs of his electorate and always willing
to take up a constituent’s fight against the bureaucracy but his overwhelming appetite for publicity, coupled with
the capacity of the press to trivialize all things related to the Territory did little to help the elected members. If the
people of Australia believed that the members of the Legislative Council were too much given to absurd posturing,
much of the blame can be given to Brennan and the journalists who encouraged him.’
Criticism of his sometimes eccentric behaviour, however, did not deter Brennan from his goal of achieving
self-government in the Territory. Between August 1964 and September 1965 he moved no less than 11 substantive
motions concerned with greater self government and while only three of them were passed (even though the
majority of the elected members gave him support on all), the publicity they engendered continued to keep the issue
of constitutional advancement in the public forum. The three successful motions called for a separate Ministry for
the Territory, censured the Minister for Territories for failing to advance the Territory constitutionally and required
the President of the Legislative Council to send extra copies of all resolutions directly to the Minister and not
through his department.
One of the major issues for which Brennan fought was the creation of an ombudsman in the Territory, which
he saw as particularly important given the lack of self-government. In 1965 he proposed a motion that took the
form of a request to the Minister to introduce legislation that would provide for an ombudsman similar to that in
New Zealand. In 1966, 1967, 1969 and twice in 1970 he introduced bills attempting to achieve this position and
even though the bills were passed, they were refused assent. Brennan eventually sought an alternative way of
achieving his objective and moved a resolution creating a committee of the Legislative Council to carry out the
functions of the ombudsman that would not be disallowed by the federal government.
Brennan was also persistent in his criticism of the Minister for Territories between 1963 and 1968, Charles Barnes.
In the last hours of the final Council meeting for 1966 he forced through a motion of no confidence in Barnes.
He took the matter a step further by resigning from his Council seat to contest Barnes’s House of Representatives
seat of McPherson in Queensland in the same year. Although he lost, he certainly made his point and was later
re-elected to the Council. He made a last and again unsuccessful attempt to capture the Territory’s House of
Representatives seat in 1969, again being re-elected to the Council afterwards. He finally retired from the Council
in 1971.
Throughout his parliamentary career he was a prolific speaker even though at times he was ‘wide of the mark’
in some of his assertions and could also at times be rattled by the interjections of the Official members. One well
remembered case was when he called out angrily, in the midst of interjections, that ‘my opinion is fact.’