A RIGHTFUL PLACE

Correspondence

Paul Kelly

Noel Pearson with eloquence and insight has told the nation it cannot postpone the question still unanswered after two centuries: what is the place for the first peoples of Australia in the constitutional nation created from their ancestral lands? That is, by definition, a political and constitutional issue. It is also, however, something greater: a spiritual and conscience issue for the entire nation.

For the Australian people – conservative, liberal, socialist, Green, Anglo-Irish or ethnic – there is no escape from our shared historical dilemma. Pearson’s purpose in his essay is to confront Australians with the question but also to lead them towards an answer. Time is running short. Tony Abbott is pledged to a constitutional referendum yet the precise question is undefined and the public debate remains confused and fragmentary, hardly good omens. 

It is now widely accepted that reconciliation must be both practical and symbolic. Pearson has long operated as a prophet on both fronts. Indeed, his campaign to transform the debate about welfare, education and living standards in remote indigenous communities has had a profound impact on public policy. But he warns in this essay the indigenous predicament cannot be reduced to the vital yet banal “closing the gap” paradigm. Invoking the words of Galarrwuy Yunupingu, he says something greater is at stake: whether the Yolngu of Arnhem Land – along with other indigenous peoples from across the continent – will find a settled place in the Australian nation so they may long live on the earth.

It is my belief that Pearson has devised a cultural and political framing of the nation that offers the best avenue to addressing the Australian dilemma. He has been developing this framework over decades. “Our nation is in three parts,” he writes. There is the ancient heritage with its culture in the land- and seascapes. There is the British heritage with its structure of law, society and governance. And there is the multicultural achievement – the merging of peoples from around the world.

Pearson argues the people of Australia now “stand on the cusp of bringing these three parts of our national story together.” He suggests this is the ultimate meaning of constitutional recognition of Australia’s indigenous peoples and this will make “a more complete commonwealth.”

This should become Abbott’s script. He could find no better method of interpreting the referendum to the Australian people. The key to this idea lies in “completing” the nation (a conservative concept) by inclusion (a liberal concept) authorised by constitutional amendment (the essence of reformism). 

The prime minister likes the idea of completing the nation’s constitution as opposed to transforming the constitution. It is a pivotal point: the public will vote for the former but reject the latter. This interpretation is perfect for Abbott as a constitutional conservative and monarchist. It makes possible the referendum’s passage because it enables the public to grasp what it means and endorse its purpose. The idea reassures because it fulfils. 

In this sense Pearson’s essay hands Abbott an immense gift. Yet Abbott’s door is already open. He told parliament last year that pre-1788 “this land was as Aboriginal then as it is Australian now” and that until this is acknowledged “we will be an incomplete nation and a torn people.” Pearson and Abbott see the referendum not just as atoning for the past but also as fulfilling the Australian story for the future. This is the key to either persuading or marginalising conservative pundits, such as Andrew Bolt, who currently oppose the referendum and have the sway to inflict grievous harm. Unfortunately, they do not see that failing to resolve this question constitutes a far deeper threat to Australia’s stability.

The essay reveals Pearson, again, as too iconoclastic to be typecast by political allegiance and too independent to be a populist among his own people. On the components of the referendum question Pearson has re-assessed. His journey testifies to the agony amid the opportunity this referendum constitutes for Aboriginal leaders. It is the eternal tribulation of politics: the trade-off between ambition and realism.

Pearson has abandoned his previous support for the referendum as a constitutional guarantee of racial non-discrimination. He makes this clear in the essay. It is an essential step, since the Abbott government would never include this provision in a referendum. Although recommended by the 2012 expert committee, the idea would derail the recognition of the indigenous peoples by creating a new and divisive debate about a constitutional bill of rights. Pearson, as realist, says constitutional change cannot be obtained by winning 51 per cent of the people. The only road to success is bringing “the whole country on board.” Hence, he makes this concession; as a realist, he had no choice.

But, ambitious as ever, Pearson wants a trade-off for his concession. He asks: if a racial non-discrimination clause is not the answer, then what is a better solution? Anxious to secure more substance for the referendum, he is unconvincing in his answer. As an alternative, Pearson wants a new political body “to ensure that indigenous peoples have a voice in their own affairs.” The idea is not sufficiently developed. The problem, surely, is that it seems too much a variation on dubious past experiments involving indigenous advisory or representative bodies.

However, Pearson’s most powerful idea about the referendum’s components goes to the question of race. In many ways this is his single most important argument in the essay. Pearson fully supports removal of the racial references in the constitution, usually seen as sections 25 and 51(xxvi). This is often called repealing the “race power.”

But what happens after this? There is a strong push for a new power to be inserted permitting the Commonwealth to legislate in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Yet this raises another point: is the referendum supposed to eliminate the idea of race from the constitution or entrench a new race power allowing laws to be made on a racial basis for indigenous peoples alone? The answer to this question may determine whether the referendum succeeds or fails.

Here is where Pearson takes his stand. “We are a human race,” he writes. He sees differences of culture, heritage, language and religion resolved in the idea of a shared race. This leads to a powerful political conclusion. The best approach for the indigenous peoples, Pearson argues, is to honour their own culture but not seek citizenship of the nation on the basis of race, nor have their racial identification embedded in the constitution. He says accepting this idea will be “a day of psychological liberation” and that removing the concept of race will have immense practical gains for indigenous peoples. Many progressives will find this idea shocking. Yet it provides the deeper basis for reconciliation.

The ultimate inspiration in this essay, however, is its fusion of the moral and practical. For Pearson, there is a moral obligation upon the Australian people to end the lack of constitutional recognition of the indigenous peoples. Beyond this lies the fate of our national project: how does Australia endure as a united cohesive nation without recognition of the peoples whose history on this continent stretches back beyond the mists of antiquity? The qualities now needed are clarity, goodwill, flexibility and realism. Noel Pearson offers them in abundance. 

Paul Kelly