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A Rightful Place: A Road Map to Recognition
The nation has unfinished business. After more than two centuries, can a rightful place be found for Australia’s original peoples?
Soon we will all decide if and how Indigenous Australians will be recognised in the Constitution. In this essential book, several leading writers and thinkers provide a road map to recognition.
Starting with the Uluru Statement from the Heart, these eloquent essays show what constitutional recognition means, and what it could make a political voice, a fairer relationship and a renewed appreciation of an ancient culture. With remarkable clarity and power, they traverse law, history and culture to map the path to change.
The contributors to A Rightful Place are Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Stan Grant, Rod Little and Jackie Huggins, Damien Freeman and Nolan Hunter, Warren Mundine, and Shireen Morris. The book includes a foreword by Galarrwuy Yunupingu. A Rightful Place is edited by Shireen Morris, a lawyer and constitutional reform fellow at the Cape York Institute and researcher at Monash University.
Soon we will all decide if and how Indigenous Australians will be recognised in the Constitution. In this essential book, several leading writers and thinkers provide a road map to recognition.
Starting with the Uluru Statement from the Heart, these eloquent essays show what constitutional recognition means, and what it could make a political voice, a fairer relationship and a renewed appreciation of an ancient culture. With remarkable clarity and power, they traverse law, history and culture to map the path to change.
The contributors to A Rightful Place are Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Stan Grant, Rod Little and Jackie Huggins, Damien Freeman and Nolan Hunter, Warren Mundine, and Shireen Morris. The book includes a foreword by Galarrwuy Yunupingu. A Rightful Place is edited by Shireen Morris, a lawyer and constitutional reform fellow at the Cape York Institute and researcher at Monash University.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
200 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 3, 2017
7 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
About the author
Noel Pearson
14 books7 followersNoel Pearson is the founder and director of the Cape York Partnership, and the author of Up From the Mission, two Quarterly Essays and many essays, articles and speeches.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 2, 2018
‘In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.’ (Uluru Statement from the Heart, 26 May 2017)
This book is a collection of thoughtful and thought-provoking essays. The book includes a foreword by Galarrwuy Yunupingu and is edited by Shireen Morris, a lawyer and constitutional reform fellow at the Cape York Institute and researcher at Monash University. The contributors are Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Jackie Huggins and Rod Little, Damien Freeman and Nolan Hunter, Warren Mundine, and Stan Grant.
I’ve read this book, and I think that I need to reread it. The central question is, as Shireen Morris asks: ‘... how do we create a fairer relationship with the First Nations of this land?’
I like Noel Pearson’s way of seeing our nation in three parts: the ancient heritage, the British inheritance and our multicultural achievement. Can it really be too difficult to bring all three together by constitutionally recognising indigenous Australians?
Noel Pearson makes the point that: ‘… Indigenous Tasmanians were nearly extinguished between the Scylla of extermination and the Charybdis of protection.’
Recognition is about equality, about both liberty and responsibility. And, surely, such recognition would answer Galarrwuy Yunupingu’s question: ‘is there a proper and rightful place for the original peoples of Australia in the nation created from their ancestral lands?’
We, who represent the British inheritance, seem afraid to listen. Afraid to acknowledge the past, unwilling to recognise that change is about progress rather than defeat or failure. For me, the main questions are not about relative merits of occupancy but about identifying where we (collectively) want to go and how we (collectively) intend to get there. Again, quoting Noel Pearson:
‘There is an alternative to fragmentation and the assimilatory state. It is recognition and reconciliation where peoples within nation-states come to terms with each other and commit to the nation, while respecting the existential anxieties of distinct peoples.
The Constitution of Australia adopted in 1901 afforded no such recognition. ‘
We cannot go back, but we can go forward. Together.
As I read this collection of essays, my anger with successive governments increased. We’ve had so many opportunities to engage in meaningful discussion, so many opportunities to identify the issues we need to address, so many opportunities to move forward. Like so many others, I was moved by Paul Keating’s Redfern Address in 1992 and Kevin Rudd’s ‘Sorry’ speech in 2008. But what has been achieved since then?
This collection of essays is recommended reading. How can we continue to ignore this issue?
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This book is a collection of thoughtful and thought-provoking essays. The book includes a foreword by Galarrwuy Yunupingu and is edited by Shireen Morris, a lawyer and constitutional reform fellow at the Cape York Institute and researcher at Monash University. The contributors are Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Jackie Huggins and Rod Little, Damien Freeman and Nolan Hunter, Warren Mundine, and Stan Grant.
I’ve read this book, and I think that I need to reread it. The central question is, as Shireen Morris asks: ‘... how do we create a fairer relationship with the First Nations of this land?’
I like Noel Pearson’s way of seeing our nation in three parts: the ancient heritage, the British inheritance and our multicultural achievement. Can it really be too difficult to bring all three together by constitutionally recognising indigenous Australians?
Noel Pearson makes the point that: ‘… Indigenous Tasmanians were nearly extinguished between the Scylla of extermination and the Charybdis of protection.’
Recognition is about equality, about both liberty and responsibility. And, surely, such recognition would answer Galarrwuy Yunupingu’s question: ‘is there a proper and rightful place for the original peoples of Australia in the nation created from their ancestral lands?’
We, who represent the British inheritance, seem afraid to listen. Afraid to acknowledge the past, unwilling to recognise that change is about progress rather than defeat or failure. For me, the main questions are not about relative merits of occupancy but about identifying where we (collectively) want to go and how we (collectively) intend to get there. Again, quoting Noel Pearson:
‘There is an alternative to fragmentation and the assimilatory state. It is recognition and reconciliation where peoples within nation-states come to terms with each other and commit to the nation, while respecting the existential anxieties of distinct peoples.
The Constitution of Australia adopted in 1901 afforded no such recognition. ‘
We cannot go back, but we can go forward. Together.
As I read this collection of essays, my anger with successive governments increased. We’ve had so many opportunities to engage in meaningful discussion, so many opportunities to identify the issues we need to address, so many opportunities to move forward. Like so many others, I was moved by Paul Keating’s Redfern Address in 1992 and Kevin Rudd’s ‘Sorry’ speech in 2008. But what has been achieved since then?
This collection of essays is recommended reading. How can we continue to ignore this issue?
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
March 3, 2018
I enjoyed reading parts of this book, however the writing is scholarly in nature, so I haven't read all of it.
Not an easy read, of course, as the contributors write powerfully about some of the truly awful outcomes of the invasion and attempted annihilation of this ancient culture.
The first chapter, suggesting a way forward, is particularly useful.
Not an easy read, of course, as the contributors write powerfully about some of the truly awful outcomes of the invasion and attempted annihilation of this ancient culture.
The first chapter, suggesting a way forward, is particularly useful.
October 10, 2024
A collection of well written essays, though it's sad reading these after the failed referendum. There is a lot of hope here, and I hope that the energy here can be re-directed after the disappointment. Australia still has a lot of hard work ahead to properly recognise its first peoples.
June 1, 2022
Brilliant, strong and a must read for anyone who cares or has love for the history, present and future of Australia
October 7, 2025
Read 'Uluru Statement from the Heart' and Noel Pearson's 'A Rightful Place'.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews