Cape York leader Noel Pearson urges Australians to unite through shared ‘love of country’
The Voice is a “modest proposal, but profound,” Yes campaigner and Cape York Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has declared in a stirring plea to Australians to back the referendum.
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The Voice is a “modest proposal, but profound,” Yes campaigner and Cape York Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has declared in a stirring plea to Australians to unite through a “love of country” and back the referendum.
Mr Pearson said the Voice’s ability to greatly change the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, while only being an advisory body, was “based on a simple truth” that “when we listen to each other outcomes are improved”.
Addressing the National Press Club, Mr Pearson revealed his “elevator pitch” for why Australians should support the Voice to Parliament referendum on October 14.
The respected Cape York Indigenous leader said there were several components to the proposed amendment to the constitution, starting with “one line of poetry” simply recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first people’s of Australia.
“Secondly, ‘There shall be a body’, that’s the guarantee,” he said.
“Can’t get rid of it. It’s a guarantee by the Australian people to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“It’s not something the parliament or the government can dodge because the Australian people have said in this proposal — there shall be a body.”
Mr Pearson said the function of this body was to “make representations”.
“Miners, farmers, environmentalists, human rights (advocates) — everybody makes representations, and that’s what the Voice will do,” he said.
“And the thing about representations — they’ll listen to you, but there’s no guarantee they’re going to follow you all the time.”
Mr Pearson said the constitutional amendment was clear the Voice would make representations about “matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.
“Not nuclear submarines, not all of that lurid stuff that has been suggested in the media by people in the No campaign,” he said.
Lastly, the parliament would have the power to make the laws, the “details” of what the Voice looks like and how it operates.
“That’s my general pitch,” he said.
Mr Pearson was also asked how he would ease the fears of multicultural communities that the referendum would fuel division.
He said there was “no priority” among Australians who were Indigenous, longer term or recent migrants.
“We’re equally Australian.”
“(With the Voice) the settler-native thing kind of retreats into history.
“It will be a great day when we do that.
“A great day for multicultural communities, too. Because they’ll know, unequivocally, that they are Australians as much as the rest of us.”
“ONLY LOVE CAN MOVE US NOW”
“We’ve got two weeks and a bit to go, it’s absolutely vital we win this referendum,” Mr Pearson said, adding that he had “learned the hard way” the importance of listening to those who need help over a lifetime of community work.
“I have observed both the fundamental power of listening, and the devastating consequences of wilful deafness,” he said.
As the October 14 referendum date looms, Mr Pearson said he believed increased empathy through friendship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians was key to recognition and understanding.
“We are three per cent and you (non-Indigenous Australians) are 97 (per cent),” he said.
“It’s understandable we mostly don’t know each other as friends.
“If we shared meals, we could rely on the empathy of friendship. Empathy is so important.
“But only love can move us now.”
‘VOICE WILL LET US CLOSE THE GAP’
Indigenous Australians will be able to Close the Gap when they are “empowered to take responsibility for our destiny,” Yes campaigner Noel Pearson has declared.
“We have many problems,” he said.
“But we … can summon the national resolve to get on top of them.
“Blame us when you give us a Voice.
“Hold us accountable too when we do this.
“We want our right to take responsibility.”
Mr Pearson said Australians were “not guilty for the past,” but “neither are we (Indigenous people)”.
“Our alleged inferiority is no justification for that history,” he said.
“The inhumanity of the frontiers was not because we were inhuman.
“We can only be responsible for forgetting the truth and its legacy in the present.
“We were victims of history but our victimhood ends with our empowerment.”
Mr Pearson said on October 14 “we the Australian People face a choice: a choice between crossing the bridge to our future or floundering in the past”.
“A choice between listening to each other, respecting each other, or closing our hearts and minds to the simple truth that when we listen, we get better results,” he said.
“A choice between a country big enough for all of us to love, and just enough for all of us to flourish, or a country belittled by our differences, and demeaned by our past.”
‘LOVE OF COUNTRY JOINS US ALL’
Mr Pearson said he had come to believe a “love of country” was what joined all Australians.
“It’s not the same as patriotism because there is nothing political about this love of country, rather it is about the wondrous lands and seas – all of the nature that makes this country so beloved of us all – and its effect upon our souls,” he said.
“No Australian can fail to feel this in the presence of Uluru, and a million other places each of us call our special homes.
“We need to recognise our mutually shared love for this country.”
Mr Pearson urged Australians to “keep having conversations” about constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First People’s of Australia, in the “remaining time we have” until the referendum.
“We can move from protest and reminder, to mutual recognition,” he said.
“I want for our national prayer to be: this is my land, this is your land, this is our land.”
Mr Pearson said he has had “ tens of thousands” of conversations with Australians as he campaigned around the country.
“In the quiet after the noise and bustle I’ve reflected on what I have learned from listening to thousands of my fellow Australians, and the thousands whose intentions in this referendum I could not be sure of,” he said.
“I’ve conversed about constitutional law, politics, race, details, equality, discrimination, fears and hopes – and I have endeavoured to answer questions honestly and accurately.”
Mr Pearson also assured people the referendum will “uphold the constitution” describing the proposed amendment as legally “safe”.
NO DIVISION ON ‘RACE’
The Voice does not divide the country on “race” and simply addresses the fact there were people in Australia before 1788 when European settlers arrived, says Yes campaigner and Indigenous leader Noel Pearson.
“We’re not a separate race, we’re humans,” he said.
“It’s just that we are Indigenous.
“And you go to some parts of the world and Indigenous people are blonde and blue eyed.
“It’s not about race.
“This is about us being the original peoples in the country.”
Mr Pearson said he would ask Australians to understand recognition was not about race.
“This is about Indigenous,” he said.
“And the simple question about Indigenous is — were there people here before 1788?
“And the answer is yes, there were, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
“That’s what we’re recognising — not a separate race.”
Mr Pearson said the referendum proposal was the “perfect balance” or recognising Indigenous people without impinging on broader Australia.
“It is a balance that respects the constitution, but also, for the first time, seizes the
opportunity to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first peoples of Australia,” he said.
Mr Pearson also said the Voice needed to operate at a local level to sort out the “real practical problems facing local people”.
“There’s no need for infrastructure, you just need a table … and the community sits on one side and the government people sit on the other side and we do business,” he said.
DISEASE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN HEARD
A preventable illness largely eradicated in the rest of the world is killing two Indigenous Australians a week, after successive governments failed to listen to remote communities’ calls for help, Mr Pearson said.
Rheumatic Heart Disease is a “scourge” that has been allowed to “fester” in remote areas like his own community in Far North Queensland, but through a Voice, Indigenous Australians could advocate for solutions, he said.
“It is the disease of a people who have spoken, but have not been heard,” he said.
Mr Pearson said doctors at an event in Brisbane this week confirmed the disease kills two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people per week.
“Young children, teenagers, and young adults in their 20s and 30s … drop dead swimming down the creek, on the football field, sleeping in their beds at night,” he said.
Mr Pearson said when he searched Hansard I found the Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch, who represents Cape York and the Torres Strait, had never mentioned Rheumatic Heart Disease in parliament “even once”.
“He did for the first time when I mentioned this shameful failure in this campaign,” he said
“This is a problem only a Voice can overcome.
“To ensure people who represent us, who make laws about us, who determine so much of the reality of our lives, listen to our advice, and have the opportunity to benefit from the power of our ideas.”
Mr Pearson said Rheumatic Heart Disease inflicts “lifelong damage to the valves around a child’s heart, causing early death”.
“But it’s the lifelong damage to the ears of our nation’s decision-makers that has allowed this disease to prowl around Cape York decades after it has been eradicated everywhere else in mainstream Australia and around the world,” he said.
“It is a disease of the unlistened to. It is the disease of a people who have spoken, but have not been heard.
“No gets us nowhere when it comes to confronting rheumatic heart disease. Yes makes it possible.”
WHY VOICE MUST BE PERMANENT: PEARSON
Asked why the Voice had to be a permanent body, Mr Pearson said the answer lied in two parts.
Firstly, that recognition of Australia as the home of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people before the arrival of Europeans was in and of itself “important” and “should remain forever”.
“It’s an acknowledgment of the long history of Australia,” he said.
Mr Pearson said in relation to the Voice body specifically, he cautioned against seeing it as purely an advisory group to address negative issues.
“The Voice won’t just talk about problems, they will talk about opportunities and positive things,” he said.
“And the gifts that the Indigenous peoples can give to their country.
“As long as our nation exists, our people will be contributing to this nation.”
Mr Pearson was also asked if he thought the Yes campaign was cutting through to the undecided or “soft” voters it needed to reach and convince by October 14.
He said campaigners all over the country were talking to everyday Australians in the outer suburbs and the nation’s regional centres.
“We’ve been all over the countryside,” he said.
“The coverage is specifically aimed at people who are ‘soft Yeses,’ we want to conclude the deal with them,” he said.
“But also soft No’s. People who are inclined at the moment, without having their issues answered, to vote No.”
Mr Pearson said he was finding when there are “proper” and “clear” answers provided, the “lights switch on” for voters and people are confident about what the Yes campaign is trying to achieve on October 14.
“I’m finding that many people who are soft No’s say to me – oh, thank you.”
‘DIVISION FOR ANOTHER 122 YEARS’
Asked if he would push the federal government to legislate a Voice if the majority of Australians voted “yes” overall, but the referendum did not secure enough support from all the states, Mr Pearson said he was “not speculating about October 15th”.
“My ability to talk ends on the night of October 14,” he said.
“I’m of the belief that we’ve got a pathway to Yes much of the Australian people have got to understand now — we’re at the pointy end of this thing.
“They’ve got to understand the choice between Yes and the future that is in prospect, and the No campaign, which is saying — we should wallow in this debate and division maybe for another 122 years.”
Mr Pearson said he could not see a scenario where the question of constitutional recognition was ever going to arise again due to division in the Coalition about holding another referendum.
“What happens in the event of a loss is not something I’m contemplating now,” he said.
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