Noel Pearson’s lesson is that all Australians can be one

Noel Pearson has described the ­effort to put an Indigenous voice in the Australian Constitution as ‘a big struggle’ as well as an opportunity to unite the nation.

Academic and educationalist Noel Pearson enjoys time with Indigenous students at his old school, St Peters Lutheran College in Brisbane, on Friday. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Noel Pearson has described the ­effort to put an Indigenous voice in the Australian Constitution as “a big struggle” as well as an opportunity to unite the nation.

As he stood before Cape York kids who followed his path from north Queensland to St Peters ­Lutheran College in Brisbane, Mr Pearson on Friday described the high bar required for a successful referendum – a majority of voters in a majority of states must vote yes – as “a very large challenge”.

Mr Pearson has long believed Australia has three stories: Indigenous foundations; British institutions; and multicultural migra­tion. On Friday, he told an assembly of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students – including migrants – that the referendum Australia was heading towards was a chance to reconcile them all.

“We must bring these three ­stories together. These – our own stories – are, indeed, staring us in the face. They are our reality. We only need open our eyes and ears and hearts to them,” he said.

“Recognition and justice for the country’s original peoples is necessary if we are to bring Australians – Indigenous, colonial and migrant – together.”

Mr Pearson made the remarks during a rare speech at the school, where he arrived 44 years ago from Hope Vale mission to begin Year 8. He is not a stranger at St ­Peters. His son and daughter study there and parents of other students sometimes chat to him when they see him, coffee in hand, on his way to a school event or sport.

Mr Pearson was there to ­address the school on the 30th ­anniversary of the High Court’s Mabo decision, and he greeted ­students, including Indigenous students who have received scholarships from Cape York Partnerships. Mr Pearson was an articled clerk at Arnold Bloch Leibler in Melbourne when he self-funded a Cape York student, from Kowanyama, through boarding school.

Since then, the organisation he founded – Cape York Partnerships – has established an academic leaders program that awards Indigenous students throughout Cape York with scholarships to Queensland’s leading boarding high schools and tertiary institutions.

Hundreds of Cape York children have graduated Year 12 with help from these scholarships and have then transitioned to further education and employment. The students receive mentoring, tutoring and other support. And their families make a contribution from their own incomes.

In his speech on Friday, Mr Pearson did not make his vocabulary or his ideas small for the benefit of the students. He recalled how his modern history teacher, Michael Selleck, let the class rest their heads on their desks “with Seneca’s injunction that we meditate on the brevity of life”.

Mr Pearson said he had four identities: as a Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji man; as part of the wider Pama community of Cape York; as a Lutheran; and as a member of the community of St Peters school which he considers a home. He raised the topic of multiple identities while saying he thought Australia was still somewhat uncertain and unresolved about “what is Australia and who we are as Australians”.

Three decades after the Mabo decision brought Australia to the truth and morality of its history, Mr Pearson said, the Uluru Statement from the Heart presented another opportunity. “Mabo was a crucial cornerstone for reconciliation. A response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart will complete our commonwealth,” he added.

“The new government … has committed to taking the recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution to a referendum. If we rise to the opportunity … our three Australian stories will become one, and … we will be able to speak in the first-person plural: ‘We the Aus­tralian People’.”