Noel Pearson

Noel Pearson (born 25 June 1965) is an Australian lawyer and founder of the Cape York Partnership, an organisation promoting the economic and social development of Cape York. He is also the Founder of Good to Great Schools Australia an organisation dedicated to lifting education outcomes for all Australian students.

Pearson came to prominence as an advocate for Indigenous Australians' rights to land – a position he maintains. Since the end of the 1990s his focus has encompassed a range of additional issues: he has strongly argued that Indigenous policy needs to change direction, notably in relation to welfare, substance abuse, child protection, education and economic development. Pearson criticises approaches to these problems which, while claiming to be "progressive", in his opinion merely keep Indigenous people dependent on welfare and out of the "real economy". He outlined this position in 2000 in his speech, ''The light on the hill''.

In the first decade of the 2000s, Pearson began outlining an alternative to traditional left-wing politics that he called radical centrism. One part of his selected writings is entitled "The Quest for a Radical Centre".

In November 2019, it was announced that Pearson would be one of 20 members of the Senior Advisory Group set up to help co-design the Indigenous voice to government. Provided by Wikipedia