Noel Pearson says Indigenous voice to parliament referendum is test of Australia’s democracy

Noel Pearson says No campaign wants Australians to fight culture wars forever, including about whether First Nations people are worthwhile.

Noel Pearson, founder of the Cape York Institute, addresses the National Press Club. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Prominent Yes campaigner Noel Pearson has declared the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum will be a test of Australia’s democracy and a No vote will ensure cultural wars – including a debate on whether Aboriginal people are worthwhile – will continue indefinitely.

In a speech to the National Press Club titled “for the love of country”, the Cape York leader conceded supporters of a voice were filled with hope and terror about the outcome on October 14 but said “out of naivety or faith” Indigenous people wanted to ask Australians if they “supported a better future”.

“This really is a test of whether our democracy can sustain a discourse for good,” Mr Pearson said in a sometimes emotional appeal to voters.

“Can we do good things in our democracy by talking to one another in a situation with bots, robo calls and the sheer filth on the sewers of the internet come into play? Can we still do good things in the democracy through putting our case to other citizens in our country and appealing to their intelligence and their hearts?”

Mr Pearson, who in early 2021 called for draft legislation to be released before the referendum to show what the voice entailed, lashed what he described as a “false debate about details” that had conflated the detail of the constitutional amendment and the detail of subsequent legislation.

He said politicians demanding detail should “go to the bathroom and look themselves in the mirror and find out who’s responsible” for developing the voice, a day after Peter Dutton warned the country would end up with an advisory body “skewed toward a Labor-Greens view”.

In comments rejected by the Coalition, Mr Pearson said he could not see a scenario where the question of constitutional recognition would arise again, claiming a second referendum had been killed off by opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the Nationals.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the Coalition’s commitment to constitutional recognition through a “proper process” was clear and had been reaffirmed by Senator Price this week.

Senator Price said Mr Pearson’s speech was “all hat and no cattle like the entire Yes campaign”, and when the rhetoric was stripped away it was about division.

“He talks about a nation that is ‘us’ and ‘them’, but that’s not the country most Australians live in. A nation that would be forever ‘us’ and ‘them’ in its Constitution cannot be unified, no matter what Noel Pearson says,” she said.

“The idea that a constitutionally enshrined voice would ‘complete Australia’ is rhetorical nonsense and incomprehensible to the vast majority of Australians who want practical solutions to addressing Indigenous disadvantage.”

Hoping Australians’ “humble temperament and quiet capacity for greatness” would result in a Yes vote, Mr Pearson said the No campaign wanted the status quo to remain and not to move the country forward.

“The status quo is really one of cultural war,” he said.

“They want us to fight about these things forever. About history, about colonisation, about whether Aboriginal people are worthwhile, or whether they should abandon everything about themselves and become white. All of these are distractions.

“But they’re kind of fodder for a cultural war. And it serves their political interests to engage in cultural war. We don’t want that. We want to put cultural war behind us.”

Mr Pearson was joined in Canberra by community leaders from Cape York, the Kimberley and northeast Arnhem Land who said being able to talk directly to parliament and executive government through a voice would mean their problems were heard.

“In the Kimberleys, in our remote communities we’re still living in the dark ages,” Kimberley Land Council cultural adviser Jane Bieundurry said.

A delegation of community leaders from Cape York, Kimberley and North East Arnhem Land. Jane Bieundurry is pictured on the right of Noel Pearson. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“I come from a community, I still drink dirty water. But we need a voice so that our voice from down there can go straight to parliament. I’m a mother who had a suicide victim. I never have no help. I need a voice from there to help me.”

Mr Pearson said Australians’ love of country was the largest motive for voting Yes and a successful referendum would “orientate the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians down a safe and responsible middle path”.

“Voting Yes is a rejection of confected war. Voting Yes crosses the bridge on the pathway to peace,” he said.

“Voting No leaves us suspended in the neverland that exists when two peoples love the same homeland, but have not yet learned to love each other.”