Noel Pearson says a yes in the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum would unify the nation, saying “no more profound a vote” has been put to the Australian people.
The founder of the Cape York Institute and leading yes campaigner delivered the annual Federation University reconciliation lecture in Melbourne on Thursday.
“This referendum is … the most important vote since the original votes that established the federation in 1901,” he said.
“This is the most important vote in the 250 years since Lt James Cook’s voyage up the east coast of [the] continent in 1770.
“No more profound a vote has been put to the Australian people than the referendum in October this year.”
Pearson said there were “naysayers” in the referendums that brought the Australian nation into existence in 1898-1900, but without the yes vote back then, “there would have never have been the commonwealth of Australia”.
A yes vote in October will be a vote for a more unified country, Pearson said, in a subtle rebuke to the no campaign, which claims the voice to parliament will be “divisive”.
Instead, he said, a successful referendum is an opportunity for inclusion and recognition.
“History is calling on our generation to vote yes for inclusion and recognition. To leave behind exclusion and denial. To reflect the unity of the Australian people under a single, indivisible commonwealth by finally recognising its First Peoples,” he said.
“We bear the greatest responsibility of history. To honour our heritage and bequeath to future generations the unity and reconciliation that will come from recognition.”
He also responded to polls that show a decline in support for the yes vote over the past few months, saying “the only poll that we need to focus on is the one on referendum day”.
“We have three months to continue to have the conversations with our fellow Australians, with our families and with our friends and colleagues at work and in our communities,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Aboriginal people across the Pilbara region backed the Indigenous voice to parliament, in the latest community endorsement of a yes vote at the referendum.
The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, and the Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, met with traditional owners at the annual on-country bush meeting at Yule River, after a meeting of local traditional owners resolved to support the voice.
The Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation (YMAC), which organised the meeting, said community members had called on local, state and federal governments to work harder to meet their Closing The Gap commitments.
After a presentation on the voice from prominent yes campaigner Thomas Mayo and further community discussion, YMAC said “an overwhelming majority” of meeting attenders indicated their support for the referendum – with others asking for more information.
