Pearson’s view is that ninety per cent of Australians need to support recognition for it to be truly reconciliatory. This is the proportion that supported constitutional reform in 1967 when the only two references to ‘Aboriginals’, one prohibiting the Commonwealth from making special laws in their interest, the other excluding Aboriginal people from the national census, were deleted. Paradoxically, as a consequence of these changes, there is no reference whatsoever to indigenous peoples in the founding document of the Australian nation; even as they were rendered statistically visible in the census, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples became constitutionally invisible.

Deploying his well-worn and oversimplified binary distinction between progressives and conservatives, Pearson is of the view that reform will need to be led by a conservative leader so as to enhance the prospect that sceptical constitutional conservatives will be won over. This is a requirement identified as essential by Pearson since his rather unedifying support for John Howard on the eve of his electoral defeat when the issue of constitutional reform belatedly emerged.

As an instrument of constitutional activism, A Rightful Place is an essay pitched at the conservatives, masterfully recruiting the highly influential Murdoch media machinery to the cause, which is hardly surprising given the unparalleled editorial column space Pearson enjoys in The Australian; he even gives Andrew Bolt a sympathetic nod. A critical question is whether in such courting the Pearson manifesto might jeopardise the support of indigenous people and progressives considered to be wedded to the cause.

The key question here is what will be proposed. In 2012, a twenty-two person Expert Panel (including Pearson) laid out a detailed template for modernisation: Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution. This included proposals that the antiquated notion of race be deleted, alongside a need to include meaningful reference to prior indigenous occupation of the continent. But the Expert Panel also proposed a new section that would prohibit discrimination (on the basis of race, colour, ethnicity, or national origin), while retaining constitutional allowance for special Commonwealth laws or measures to assist in the overcoming of disadvantage, ameliorating the effects of past discrimination, and protecting the cultures, languages, and heritage of any group (not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples). These are relatively strong proposals for reform that might have practical import and go beyond the cosmetic.

Pearson is of the view that some of these proposals, just two years on, might be too challenging for those concerned about interventions by ‘judicial activism’. And so he looks for a diluted set of proposals that expunge constitutional protection from racial discrimination, instead suggesting that a new democratic body be established to guarantee ‘the indigenous voice in indigenous affairs’. This strikes me as disingenuous. Pearson is strategically silent on the bipartisan parliamentary demonisation and demolition of the representative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission; on the current National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples; and on Tony Abbott’s preferred unrepresentative Indigenous Advisory Council.

Noel Pearson (photograph courtesy of Black Inc.)Similarly, Pearson looks to eliminate constitutional reference to cultural and linguistic preservation and activation, instead setting ‘an agenda for the classical culture of ancient Australia’ that would instead see the welcome strengthening of existing institutions, like the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and productive collaborative projects of ‘preservation’. This ‘Before It’s Too Late’ approach to culture will be dependent on vastly enhanced government support, and misinterprets ‘culture’ as something from the past that can be preserved rather than something from the present that is produced in everyday values, beliefs, orientations, and practices. Pearson is appealing again to conservative notions of tradition as compartmentalised from ways of life.

Pearson breaks ranks with the Expert Panel and wades into this fraught field of politics, perhaps he senses that the reforming zeal of his friend Tony Abbott, the man who would be prime minister for indigenous affairs, is waning and needs invigoration? Certainly, this essay has received extraordinary publicity. It was presented by Pearson in front of a sell-out crowd at the Sydney Opera House, fêted on the front page of The Australian – where Pearson appears beachside, quite the splendid Renaissance man wearing a new constitutional reform hat – and then précised and editorialised and revisited time and again.

In all this, there is a real danger that the man who proposed the ‘radical centre’ and who emphasised the practical over the symbolic is riskily over-correcting and will end up advocating for a constitutional reform position that is so hollowed out and diluted that it will alienate indigenous and progressive voting blocs that might prefer to take a much stronger reform position, even if it fails. There is time before 2017 for Pearson to adaptively manage his position, and for many other voices to be heard before the referendum proposal is put to the Australian people. Pearson’s particular political narrative is influential, but on this issue, thankfully, it is not monopolistic.