Altruism

WHEN are empathy and armchair altruism not enough?

I thought I understood how those who had written The Uluru Statement from

the Heart felt when Turnbull and others roundly rejected it. But I was not even close.

Noel Pearson’s article in the latest Monthly details the impact that the rejection had on him and, vicariously, on others who worked for years, reaching out across the political spectrum, patiently explaining ideas later consolidated at Uluru especially the idea of a legislated indigenous voice giving non-binding advice on indigenous matters to parliament.

There was the shock of the PM’s deliberate misrepresentation of it as a “third chamber”; the dismay at Turnbull’s and Abbott’s sacrificing their earlier support to their personal ambitions.

There’s an outpouring of pain and anger in the article, self-recrimination and regret. Despite his emotional and psychological battering, there’s hope too.

Although he declares bipartisanship dead, after reaching out to politicians of the right over 17 years yielded nothing, he has not given up on their constituency.

He believes “the bulk of Australian people incline towards the radical centre when it’s presented to them that sweet spot between realism and idealism.”

The same-sex marriage results support that notion somewhat. — PHIL ARMIT, Toowoomba