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Australians have been promised a peace dividend from the Indigenous Voice in a crucial pitch from Yes campaigner Noel Pearson to convince voters to back the change and reject what he called a confected war from the No side.
Pearson said the defeat of the Voice would lead to years of continued culture war from the No camp, while a positive vote would ease the animosities of the past and set up a practical way to address problems in the future.
Noel Pearson during his address to the National Press Club.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Providing an example of how the Voice would help, the Indigenous leader said an advisory committee like the Voice could have urged governments to take stronger action on rheumatic heart disease, a condition that kills Indigenous people but has been mostly eradicated among other Australians.
The passionate address to the National Press Club, ahead of early voting opening next week for the October 14 referendum, rejected a key claim from the No side that the change would divide Australia by race and noted that the proposition was to recognise the first occupants of the land.
“It’s not about race. This is about us being the original peoples in the country,” he said, adding that the No side had never admitted to misrepresenting the proposal.
“It has been in their interest to conflate the two things – race and Indigeneity.”
The address came one day after No campaigner Warren Mundine described the Uluru Statement from the Heart – which Pearson helped draft in 2017 as a call to set up the Voice – as a “declaration of war” against modern Australia.
While Mundine argued the Voice would continue the oppression and victimhood of Indigenous people, Pearson said a Yes vote would end the victimhood by giving First Australians a better forum to be heard and making them responsible for that advice.
“Our task is for the potential, especially of our youth, to be realised in their fullest measure. We would like Australia to be kinder and friendlier to our children,” he said.
“Our children will walk in two worlds and enjoy the best of both worlds – their culture will be a gift to their country, and they will join the main frame of Australia, free to be modern versions of themselves.
“This gift of Indigenous culture, from old Australia to new, is the peace dividend of the middle way.
“Because if we vote Yes, we’re voting Yes to 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.
“Voting No is not a neutral choice. Voting No is an active choice to take us nowhere. 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.
“There is no peace dividend if we vote No. There is only the continued acrimony of endless debate – the harsh penalty of division, which will be paid in shame and mutual suspicion.”
Pearson countered calls for detail about how the Voice might work by saying the key detail was the change to the Constitution that said “parliament shall have the power” to make laws about the Voice, ensuring elected leaders could set up the body and overhaul it in future years if they chose.
“If there’s any parliamentarian demanding detail, I suggest they go to the bathroom and look themselves in the mirror and find out who’s responsible,” he said.
Pearson said Australians could blame Indigenous leaders on the Voice if it was set up because it would be held accountable for its advice. “We want our right to take responsibility. Allow us to empower our people to take charge of our children, our families, and our people’s destiny,” he said.
Pearson invoked former prime ministers Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating, John Howard and US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King during a powerful speech that described the referendum as a way for Australians to see themselves as they had not done before.
“Recognition runs two ways. Think about it as a mirror into which we see our own reflection in each other. This referendum is the largest mirror we will ever look into as a nation – 27 million people will look into this mirror on 14 October and see ourselves like we never have before.”
Pearson said rheumatic heart disease had been allowed to “prowl around Cape York” decades after it had been eradicated everywhere else in mainstream Australia, adding that the Voice was the sort of group that could ensure greater action.
“It is a disease of the un-listened to, it is a disease of a people who have spoken but have not been heard,” he said. “No gets us nowhere when it comes to confronting rheumatic heart disease. Yes makes it possible.”
He said Indigenous people deserved respect and mutual recognition rather than a No vote on October 14. “I want for our national prayer to be: This land is my land. This land is your land. This land is our land,” he said.
“My people are good people. They’ve done nothing to deserve contempt and disdain. They should not be feared or despised. They have suffered much. Let’s not prolong the alienation. They have much to contribute to their country if they be given the chance.”
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