He also told participants at Australia\u2019s premier festival of Aboriginal culture that young Indigenous people are stuck between the \u201csoft bigotry\u201d of low expectations from Labor and the left, and \u201chard bigotry\u201d from the right.<\/p>\n
As he laid out a vision to take Aboriginal policy forward after claims Anthony Albanese has failed to act after losing the referendum in 2023, Mr Pearson called for a direct funding relationship between remote communities and the federal government.<\/p>\n
The founder of Cape York Partnership also called for scrapping state and territory Aboriginal departments, calling them a black hole for their governments\u2019 budgets that merely duplicate services the commonwealth should already be providing.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemote Australia must become the sole jurisdiction of the commonwealth,\u201d Mr Pearson said<\/p>\n
\u201cThese communities and their lands would still come under the shared jurisdiction of the relevant states and territories for most functions governed by the state\u2019s constitutional responsibilities, but the administrative relationship for Aboriginal affairs would lie with the commonwealth,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be no need for Aboriginal affairs departments in the states and territories. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis would rationalise duplicated governmental systems and institutions. It would stop Indigenous affairs being the black hole for state and territory government budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Garma](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a44656dfbcf9b340a1cb7e76a45cfc7e.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson returned to Garma for the first time in three years this weekend, as he said he had to take responsibility for the referendum and for helping to set a new course.<\/p>\n
Standing in front of an Australian Electoral Commission map [see below] showing the overwhelming Yes vote in remote Australia as blue dots, the Cape York leader said he had to speak up for the \u201cblue dot communities\u201d that voted Yes in the 2023 constitutional recognition referendum.<\/p>\n
While Mr Pearson attended it, the Prime Minister was absent from Garma for the first time since he came to office. He had previously said he intended to attend every festival while he was in The Lodge. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Uluru Statement from the Heart was our prayer to the Australian people. There was hope in its words,\u201d Mr Pearson said on Saturday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe statement was written with love. It stands as probably the most beautiful unrequited letter of love in Australian political history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat right has anyone to raise hopes when those hopes were so badly misplaced? What right has anyone to offer a vision that turns out to be a mirage?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the source of my hesitation to speak of these things. But I cannot allow the failure of the referendum to excuse me from my responsibility, my duty on behalf of the blue-dot communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson said Indigenous children in Australia were \u201ccaught between the Scylla of the soft bigotry of low expectations of Labor governments and the Charybdis of the hard bigotry of the Liberal Nationals\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe inability of governments to deliver the reforms our people need is no longer only a moral failure but a civilisational one. The destruction of the blue-dot communities of remote Australia is truly at stake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commonwealth provides much of the funding, while the states and territories control many of the systems through which it is spent. What can you do if your state chooses to spend it on detention, over education?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson in his speech explained how he believed communities and their organisations were capable of finding good solutions to local problems, while state governments had a record of acting slowly or undoing good work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started my advocacy, grog was the main problem,\u201d Mr Pearson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took 15 years before governments were forced by us to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they finally implemented the alcohol management plans we advocated, the results were fundamental \u2026 Royal Flying Doctor injury retrievals fell by more than half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat should have taught us something. Instead, governments repeated the same mistake. Cannabis, previously unknown to our communities, spread unhindered.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow \u2018ice\u2019 [crystal methamphetamine] is the neglected crisis of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson also warned that any progress to tackle alcohol in remote communities was being undone, as he demanded governments of all persuasions \u201csever ties\u201d with the grog and gambling industries. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever progress we made with alcohol has since been undone by governments of both persuasions, conservative and Labor,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlcohol supply has expanded, and women and children are experiencing the worst recorded violence in more than twenty years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2025 alone, more than 1100 women and children were recorded as victims of assault across Cape York\u2019s discrete communities. So far this year 513 women and children have been victims of assault.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil political parties sever ties with vice industries grog and gambling little will change. The poor are a gold mine, said the economist Thomas Sowell. The CLP [Country Liberal Party in the territory], LNP and ALP when in power, believe it is the divine right of the vice industries to make a profit from the immiseration of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson also singled out the former Queensland Labor government of Peter Beattie in the 2000s \u2013 of setting up \u201cparasitic\u201d out-of-home care sectors. <\/p>\n
\u201cQueensland is a serial inquirer, yet children entering out-of-home care has continued to rise. Under the Beattie Government, Queensland spent a decade building an outsourced industry around the management of child and family crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey turned our children into fodder for a parasitic industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson argued that if the federal government dealt directly with local organisations that understood local problems, it was more likely to result in effective responses like the Personal Responsibility and Opportunity Act that he and other Cape York leaders had introduced in the far north Queensland communities they knew and understood.<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson presented his proposal alongside Cape York leader Fiona Jose, described by him as one of a new generation of women Aboriginal leaders.<\/p>\n
Ms Jose explained the Cape York Institute\u2019s plan for Australia\u2019s bottom million, half of whom are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.<\/p>\n
The institute \u201chas been advocating for an educational guarantee for those bottom million, regardless of whether they are Indigenous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat guarantee works on Cape York as a pledge to struggling parents in remote far north Queensland; if you start saving early for your child\u2019s education and contribute regularly to their education fund managed by the institute, the institute will find the shortfall from somewhere to ensure your child goes to an excellent city high school as a boarder,\u201d Ms Jose said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the conservative side, there is a belief that if individuals simply tried harder, they would succeed. Too often, this means policies that preach responsibility but withhold opportunity: a morality that demands people stand on their own feet while pulling the ground from under them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Jose said the Cape York Institute was now advocating for a jobs guarantee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know there is much work to be done in our communities and meaningful jobs can be created through the reinvestment of money spent on dead-end employment services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mr Pearson said this was why the Cape York Institute had an agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the rejection of the Voice, the conversation about structural reform of the federal arrangements governing Indigenous affairs, must resume,\u201d Mr Pearson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf not a Voice, then let us ask the question Dr [Martin Luther] King asked in two years after civil rights [legislation in the US] and one year before his assassination: \u2018where do we go from here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Paige Taylor is from the West Australian goldmining town of Kalgoorlie and went to school all over the place including Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and Sydney’s north shore. She has been a reporter since 1996. She started as a cadet at the Albany Advertiser on WA’s south coast then worked at Post Newspapers in Perth before joining The Australian in 2004. She is a three time Walkley finalist and has won more than 20 WA Media Awards including the Daily News Centenary Prize for WA Journalist of the Year three times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an emotional speech where he dealt with the failed voice referendum and three years of policy 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<\/a>Paige Taylor<\/a>Indigenous Affairs Correspondent, WA Bureau Chief <\/p>\n