Noel Pearson takes lead from Jewish storytelling

The country’s most prominent ­indigenous leader, Noel Pearson, has often spoken of how he is a student of Jewish history.

Lawyers Damien Freeman, left, and Julian Leeser. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

The country’s most prominent ­indigenous leader, Noel Pearson, has often spoken of how he is a student of Jewish history and ­an admirer of Jewish people. And so it is perhaps no surprise that two of his greatest collaborators in a quest to devise a form of ­indigenous recognition that will succeed at a coming referendum are Jewish.

Lawyers Julian Leeser and Damien Freeman were deep in discussion after a lunch to mark the Jewish festival of Passover two years ago when their conversation turned to indigenous recognition.

“Passover is a time where you really reflect on the history of the Jewish people and it got us talking a bit about the history of Australia and that in Australia we don’t have a national story that brings us all together that we are able to tell around the table on an ­occasion like Australia Day,” Mr Leeser said.

“It made us think about what’s happening in the indigenous recognition debate at the time.

“We are constitutional conservatives, so we’re very cautious and sceptical about putting historic or symbolic languages in the preamble of the Constitution, but it seemed to us we had a choice: oppose a referendum like this or you could get involved and start writing something and perhaps come up with a fresh idea.”

That fresh idea — the centrepiece of which is an Australian ­declaration of recognition that would capture the nation’s aspirations and “change the cultural position of indigenous Australians in the national story” — has come to form a critical part of the compromise position put forward by Mr Pearson to achieve indigenous recognition. Mr Pearson moved last week to reshape the national debate on how to recognise the nation’s first peoples, arguing the Constitution is not the place for poetry and symbolism and instead proposing a declaration of recognition alongside practical constitutional reforms that would grant indigenous people the power to scrutinise legislation and policies which affected them. As a young man, Mr Pearson was mentored by the renowned Jewish lawyer Ron Castan and completed his ­articles as a young lawyer under the stewardship of Jewish solicitor Mark Leibler, who co-chaired an expert panel on indigenous recognition.

The Cape York leader has frequently drawn parallels between the persecution and discrimination experienced by indigenous and Jewish people, and looked to the Jewish culture as a model for the thriving survival of a culture.

Mr Leeser, who has known Mr Pearson for several years, said the deeply ingrained Jewish tradition of telling stories of the past, ­especially at Passover, which involves telling the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt and the triumph of freedom, had much in common with indigenous storytelling.

“I think the declaration of recognition, through its repetition, will not only help bring Australians ­together, but the repetition of the story would imprint the story of the place of indigenous people and a sense of our shared history, values and aspirations on the minds of Australians for future generations,” Mr Leeser said. “And I think that would help create a more cohesive country.”

It is hoped a declaration of recognition would be drafted following a national competition to establish its best form, and this could then be put to the Australian people at a referendum.

Mr Freeman said that while the US had a declaration of independence and the Gettysburg ­Address, Australia had no such equivalent. “This could be a decisive moment in Australian history, perhaps a defining moment,” he said.

“It’s a moment when we ­engage with the past, but we ­engage with it in a way which is ­future-directed.”