The Cape York Institute leader said leaving the words “executive government” out of the constitution – as constitutional conservatives are urging – would do little to increase support for the referendum.
“His early bed-wetting, just when we’re yet to start the campaign proper, is not right. He does not represent Indigenous people in the position he’s taken,” Pearson said, referring to the eminent Indigenous leader as “little Micky Gooda”.
Pearson claimed Gooda was not supportive of the Voice in 2018 and favoured symbolic constitutional recognition. Gooda was involved in shaping the critical 2021 Calma-Langton report that underpinned the Voice and said this week he was deeply attached to the referendum’s success, prompting his move to publicly call for a course correction.
In his interview with The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Gooda said he was sure he would be criticised for speaking out.
But if the referendum were to fail, Gooda said, he would be “repudiated for all I have done and, as will every other Aboriginal advocate”.
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“It’s a rejection. We can’t afford to lose it. I know we’ve compromised all our lives, but right now, we’re right at the pointy end, and if there needs to be a compromise to get over the line, let’s do it.”
Gooda is leading the Queensland treaty process and ran the high-profile 2016 royal commission into the NT youth justice system. He was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission, but Pearson said Gooda had no conception of the social justice component of his job.
“The [royal commission] did not produce any change,” Pearson said. “You think the problems we’re having an Alice Springs with youth justice have got nothing to do with the Mick Gooda inquiry? Of course it has.”
“Mick Gooda’s entire career was in the bureaucracy … It’s people like him who need to hear the voices of Aboriginal people on the ground.
“Mick’s problem is that he thinks he can’t separate compromise from capitulation. He thinks capitulation is compromise.
Noel Pearson has called Opposition Leader Peter Dutton a “Judas.”Credit: Eamon Gallagher
“The day that we allow someone like him to be the arbiter of the position of Indigenous people in negotiation with parliament and the government is the day we get the whole game away.”
Asked by ABC Radio National host Patricia Karvelas if he was playing the man not the ball, Pearson said: “When the man’s holding the ball in the way he is. Well, you’ve got to tackle him.”
Pearson disputed the findings of the latest Resolve Political Monitor poll, which tracked a slump in support for yes in the last month as “an outlier poll”.
“We’ll have to see how we go. As I said, we’ve been through a lot of strife.”
Coalition figures and No campaigners have criticised Pearson recently for several personal critiques of people with whom he disagrees. Some Voice proponents and Labor figures privately believe his barbs do not help the Yes case because they generate negative headlines, but they have been reluctant to rebuke him on the record.
Pearson has called Opposition Leader Peter Dutton “Judas” and invoked the spectre of Nazis tattooing Jewish people in a debate with Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who took offence as a Jew. Pearson has also strongly rebuked Voice proponents Greg Craven and Frank Brennan, both of whom are pushing for amendments to the proposed constitutional change.
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Pearson criticised Leeser on Friday morning, claiming his attempts to alter the referendum wording were detrimental to the cause of reconciliation and motivated in part by a desire to return to the Coalition frontbench.
Last November, Pearson attacked leading Indigenous Voice opponent and Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price on Radio National, saying she was being used to “punch down on other blacks”.
Pearson also attacked leading No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Key Voice proponent Megan Davis, commenting on Gooda’s recommendations, said research showed Australians wanted the Voice to be powerful.
“Otherwise, what’s the point? People want change, not the status quo,” she said on Twitter.
“Our mob are always expected to tolerate street fighting rules when it comes to us and politics,” she said of Pearson’s comments. “But when we push back, in a political contest, in comes the civility brigade.”
Dutton said Gooda was a big-hearted person of integrity and Pearson’s comments overstepped the line. “Noel’s a wonderful Australian, he’s a colourful character, but by his own admission he’s got a pretty sharp tongue. I thought this morning he went overboard in relation to Mick Gooda,” Dutton said at a press conference on Friday morning.
“We should have a respectful debate and that’s what I’d ask of, not just Noel Pearson but everybody involved in this debate.”