Noel Pearson says Queensland must lead the push for Yes in the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

Noel Pearson says Queensland must be at the ‘forefront’ of the Indigenous voice to parliament Yes campaign as he appealed to the state’s Liberal National Party to support this year’s referendum.

Noel Pearson says Queensland must be at the forefront of the Yes campaign for the referendum as he appealed to the state Liberal National Party to support the Indigenous voice to parliament.

Speaking at a Yes campaign event at Queensland parliament on Tuesday night, Mr Pearson urged the LNP opposition to make a “sensible decision” and “not lose an opportunity” to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the Constitution.

“We have got five of the six states, so this is possibly the most important meeting of this campaign,” he said. “This is the state that really has to be at the forefront of the referendum. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be the one state that doesn’t cross the line in October.”

An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian this month showed a majority of Australians in a majority of states supported enshrining a voice in the Constitution.

In Queensland – the home state of Mr Pearson, Liberal leader Peter Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud – there were 49 per cent of people in favour of the voice and 43 per cent in the No camp.

Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has not revealed how he will vote at the referendum, saying he was still weighing up his position and generally didn’t “go off half-cocked on things”.

“There isn’t a vote tomorrow, it is still many months away and there is still a parliamentary report that has to come back,” he said last week.

Mr Pearson – a key contributor to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the founder of Cape York Institute – said Brisbane and Queensland were “tremendously important to the referendum”.

“Let’s not make the country and Indigenous people victims of a confected political fight between left and right, progressives and conservatives; that is not what this is about.

“I am very confident we are going to get five of the six states, I just wouldn’t like my home state to be the exception.

“I really want the government and opposition to really think seriously about how we can make Queenslanders vote for the right thing.”

Tuesday night’s event was attended by about 30 state MPs including most of Annastacia Palaszczuk's frontbench, One Nation’s Stephen Andrew, Greens’ Michael Berkman, independent Sandy Bolton and LNP MPs Rob Molhoek, Sam O’Connor, David Janetzki and Trevor Watts.

Gold Coast-based Mr O’Connor said he supported the voice, which was a “simple but powerful way to deliver better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”.

“I would like to see the reference to executive government removed from the proposed wording because I think it is unnecessary. If that isn’t changed, I will still vote Yes later this year because I back the concept and don’t want to see us miss the chance to achieve constitutional recognition.”