NOEL FROM NOOSA - WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?

By Paul Zanetti

You'd be forgiven if you believed Noel Pearson, one of the leading voice architects and founder of the Cape York Partnership, lives amongst the Cape York community.

But you'd be wrong.

Amongst many other of Pearson's taxpayer funded Cape York entities, the Cape York Partnership is an organisation whose purpose is to promote the economic and social development of Cape York.

The body has been the recipient of around $550 million with very little to show for it.

Veteran Far North MP Warren Entsch recently took a closer look at Pearson, saying he has garnered at least $550m in government funding for his programs with no benefits to the locals.

Speaking in parliament, Mr Entsch said Pearson has never been elected as an Indigenous leader.

“Noel has been on the government’s payroll for decades, advising and influencing Indigenous policy, and I say to government: do we really need the architect of so many policy failures involved in producing another one?

“While he identifies himself as a Cape York Indigenous leader, Noel Pearson has never stood for an election,” Mr Entsch said.

He said Mr Pearson had been “held up as a messiah — like a figurehead for Indigenous Australians”.

“There is no doubt that Noel has significant influence over Indigenous affairs, but I, like many others in Cape York who have seen the reality of his influence, have long been critical of governments and bureaucrats that only care to listen for his voice,” Mr Entsch said.

He said over decades, Mr Pearson had received millions “for his pet projects”.

“Many of these remote communities that Noel has used as policy experiments remain dysfunctional, whether it’s Cape York welfare reform, Cape York Employment, Good to Great Schools or a range of other concessions — the list of Noel’s entities and programs just goes on and on,” Mr Entsch said.

He said Mr Pearson labelled dissenters racist.

“The communities in Cape York who have, effectively, banned Noel — like Mapoon — are doing exceptionally well,” Mr Entsch said.

“Those who’ve let Noel’s influence into their communities remain dysfunctional.”

Warren Entsch says the $550m is what he "struggled to find" and that "there is more" that he is trying to find.

Taxpayer money granted to Pearson's pet projects are not being accounted for.

Warren Entsch goes on, "The money was invested in Noel's ideas. But they were also invested in his own companies. Because Noel not only came up with the ideas, he also implemented them.

"You've got Cape York Welfare Reform that made sure he had control of the finances on indigenous people and communities that participated in it.

"There's Cape York Land Council. We've got the Cape York Institute. There's Balkanu which is supposed to be their economic developer.

"I asked this question back when Philip Ruddock was Indigenous Affairs Minister, I asked him to give me one example of a successful transition by an individual or an indigenous company from financial support from Balkanu and I'm still waiting for those numbers to come through.

"You've got Cape York Employment. You've got Cape York Partnerships. You've got Good To Great Schools. You've got Cape York Timbers. You've got PAMA Futures and so on...all of these are controlled by Pearson's entities.

"At the end of the day I have to shake my head in disbelief. It's a disgrace."

"The locals tell me they haven't seen Noel Pearson in well over a decade or more except for a recent local photo taken holding the hand of an elderly women for the press.

"I'll give you an example. There was established in Aurukun a really successful Men's Shed. And it was absolutely thriving. Then suddenly one of Pearson's entities, Cape York Employment was given the contract to run the employment initiatives in Aurukun. They were getting no outcome, so immediately tried to get the success of the Men's Shed and effectively destroyed it. It doesn't exist anymore.

"Speaking to senior elders up there, their concern is that they are being used as tools and experiments by the Pearson entities to gather funds for their various organisations without getting any benefit whatsoever.

"From my discussions, there is a big push up there with traditional owners now, to take control of their own identity. To get themselves out from under Pearson's identity."

So the question goes begging - where has all the money gone, Noel?

Not a lot of economic or social development has occurred under Noel's watch compared to other non-aboriginal communities, despite the hundreds of millions funnelled to Pearson community organisation over the years.

And for reasons best known to Pearson, he prefers to not live amongst his community but remotely, on Noosa's North Shore.

Noel's chosen home of Tewantin in the Queensland Sunshine Coast lies along the Noosa River, bounded to the north by Lake Cooroibah and to the east by the Noosa River which flows into the lake.

What is funding Noel's North Shore Noosa lifestyle?

Could it be possibly be the monies intended for Cape York communities?

He is earning a reputation as a professional 'grifter' given the large sums of Australian taxpayer money which has passed his way for no tangible result.

Noel Pearson is not alone, though. The aboriginal guilt industry is riddled with professional grifters.

Aboriginal grifting and rent seeking has become such a fast growing industry, founded entirely on feelings, guilt-tripping, entitlement and victimhood that Diplomas and Degrees on Grifting are likely to be granted their own aboriginal-only courses at aboriginal only universities. The only way to get a free scholarship at the soon-to be founded 'Bruce Pascoe University for Grifters' will be to only identify as aboriginal. No evidence required.

The only way for Pearson and his elite cohorts to dispel the growing accusations of grifting is to account for the money.

There are calls for a forensic accounting of the wasted hundreds of millions - an audit of the money trail, in place of a constitutional voice which will only create more money funnels to powerful elites, for no benefit to aboriginal people.

Pearson is a lightning rod of controversy, attracting too much attention for his colourful abusive language and racism than he does for his advocacy for aboriginal personal responsibility.

When Noel does not get his way he is known for turning with a rage that has damaged his relationships and his reputation.

Queensland’s former education director general says Noel Pearson called him an “arse coverer”, a “maggot” and a “bucket of sh*t”.

Former Queensland education minister, Kate Jones, backed reports that Pearson called her a “f*cking white c*nt”.

A nurse in the remote Cape York town of Coen, who disagreed with Pearson has claimed Pearson also called her a “f*cking white c*nt”.

Nurse Barbara Shephard told the ABC: “He said I was a f*cking white cunt and an interfering b*tch."

She went on to say, “I personally have no respect for him whatsoever. I feel he is a bully. He’s a foul-mouthed bully.”

Pearson denies these accusations.

After the ABC reported government scrutiny of alleged unexplained cash flows in relation to one of Pearson's Fair North Queensland schools, Pearson called the ABC “a miserable, racist national broadcaster”.

In 2014 Pearson repeatedly called a senior editor at the Sydney Morning Herald a “c*nt” and told him he would “beat [him] to a pulp”, the newspaper’s then columnist Paul Sheehan wrote.

Journalist, Tony Koch, wrote of Pearson’s furious abuse after a story on Indigenous slaughter of turtles by the Australian’s Sarah Elks.

“Anyone who knows Pearson will understand what that means: he used language so foul it couldn’t be repeated here, leaving the journalist stunned and shaken, before slamming the phone down in her ear,” Koch wrote.

He is also reported to have referred to former Indigenous Minister Ken Wyatt as a “black c*nt” and Indigenous Labor senator Pat Dodson as a “f*cking black c*nt”.

He has claimed Senator Jacinta Price is caught in a "redneck celebrity vortex".

Noel Pearson was raised as a Lutheran, benefitting from generosity and sponsorship of 'white fellas' and the British system of government, yet he rails and campaigns against people of British heritage while playing the British system to his personal and financial benefit.

Despite his own advantages from the Brits, his modus operandi is to divide by race and skin colour telling migrants to our shores to differentiate themselves frOm the British based on their skin tone.

In pitching to non-British migrants to support the contentious Constitutional referendum, Pearson pitched to people of Asian, African and other coloured races.

“I say to multicultural communities in the campaign that I am involved in around the country, I say to them, listen, where do you fit into Australia?”

“It's a bit unclear. Are you with the mob from the UK?”

“Are you kind of honorary settlers? Because some of you are the wrong colour.”

"Or you don't come from Northern Europe. You come from Africa, you come from Asia, from South America, from all over the joint, you come from China."

Pearson's divisive pitch fell flat.

Most migrants come to Australia for a better life based on equality and fairness for all. The most recently arrived migrants in particular will reject a notion of special treatment for one race above their own, based on that race being here longer.

That's the opposite of why they came here, many having escaped division based on class, race or heritage.

Noel's wealth, sourced from the Australian taxpayer and the white Anglo system of government inherited from the British is coming under legitimate question.

With a Constitutional voice now front and center of the nation's attention, many are now saying we need a Royal Commission into where the hundreds of billions of dollars have gone over the past decades with nothing to show for it.

We don't need a voice, we need an audit - starting with Noel from Noosa.