Lit from within: the magnificent Pearson in his own words

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson. Picture: John Feder

Noel Pearson has long been one of Australia’s most outstanding public intellectuals, a man of deep faith and commitment to public service, with an imposing presence in person, force on the page when expounding ideas, and passion and verve when stirring an audience with his oratory. Pearson is lit from within.

In his magnificent new book, Mission: Essays, Speeches & Ideas (Black Inc), we can revisit Pearson’s journey across more than three decades as he ruminates on his upbringing, reconciliation, land rights, education, employment, welfare, identity, history, philosophy and his ongoing search for “the radical centre”.

This is no mere collection of past words packaged for re-consumption. This is a voyage of perpetual thinking, the search for meaning and understanding, of trying to improve himself and move the nation forward. It is about the struggle for public progress, often against entrenched opposition, and identifying narrow pathways where initiative can be seized. It is also deeply personal.

The lengthy opening essay offers hope and despair, critical self-reflection, new ideas and a re-examination of proposals he once championed. It is hard to think of another figure – often a polarising one – who can take a scalpel to their own work and so candidly admit when they were wrong.

This introductory essay is enveloped in melancholy. Pearson writes about his father’s conception of life’s purpose that became his own: to serve God and your fellow man. His father died at 62 at home in Hope Vale. Pearson is now 56 and senses the clock is ticking. “The game’s not over, but there’s no escaping I’m in the last stretch of my prime,” he writes.

Pearson has sat with prime ministers at the decision-making table and lashed them mercilessly in public. He has been unrelenting in his quest for social and economic justice for his people. He has challenged thinking, provoked debate and changed opinions. He has infuriated and persuaded many Australians, no matter their background.

In recent years the idea of a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament has been Pearson’s most notable contribution to public debate. He is architect and advocate. The voice would advise the parliament, not usurp it, thereby strengthening its mandate. The co-design process has, lamentably, stalled. Pearson, however, remains compelling on the case for the voice.

“The Uluru Statement from the Heart is Australia’s greatest act of faith, hope and love. Faith in the people of Australia. Hope for the future,” Pearson says. “Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians is not a project of woke identity politics, it is Australia’s longest-standing and unresolved project for justice and inclusion.”

Pearson is an activist and reconciler. His articulation of the three strands to the Australian story – ancient Indigenous heritage, the British institutions that built on it and the gift of multicultural migration – is a unifying concept that should be reflected in a new national declaration. “It is one of the great epic stories of this planet,” he argues. “We will recognise the scale of our story when we recognise each other.”

There is no leader Pearson admires more than Paul Keating. After the 1993 election, Pearson played a key role in the development and passage of the Native Title Act. That story is told in my book, Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader (Scribe), published five years ago. It was thrilling to interview Pearson for that book. When the interview ended, I asked if he would consider launching the biography. There was nobody else that I considered or asked. Pearson replied “Yes” before I could even finish my pitch. His speech at the launch – which was overly generous to my book – is republished in this collection. It is a superb reflection on politics, leadership and power.

Keating encouraged Pearson to make the leap into parliamentary politics, via the Labor Party, for two decades. In 1998, Pearson was approached about the Melbourne seat of Lalor. In 2001, there were talks about a seat in western Sydney, perhaps Keating’s electorate of Blaxland. In more recent years there were suggestions about seats in Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney, or perhaps the Senate.

I have talked to Pearson about a career in parliament. Powerbrokers explored these more recent options but never real­ly committed. It would require Labor to compromise to accept Pearson, who has often been a critic, and it would require Pearson to compromise and accept the often-unyielding principle of party solidarity. He cannot be a lone wolf; he must hunt with the pack.

Pearson acknowledges this door has probably closed. “At 33, I should have tried the political path to power inside the tent, but I hesitated,” he writes. “I did not yet possess the vantage of self-belief to see its viability, and the necessity I only now see in hindsight.” At 42, he wrongly thought “we could still achieve the things we wanted without the diversions and mundanities of professional politics”.

It is a huge loss for Australia that Pearson has not found his way into parliament. It speaks volumes about our decaying political parties that they have not done all they could to enlist him. He is far from universally loved and can rub people the wrong way. It was ever thus with real leaders. Pearson, too, would need to be accommodating.

Pearson is a man of extraordinary talents: a blend of compassion and intellect, a radical and a centrist, a passionate proselytiser and man of rational judgment and righteous indignation. Through the Cape York Institute and his broader advocacy, he has found outlets for these talents. He may feel he has fallen short of achieving his ambitions for his people, but Pearson has made a vast contribution to public life.