Uphold & Recognise is a non-profit organisation committed to both upholding the Australian Constitution and the substantive recognition of Indigenous Australians. We have now joined the offical YES! campaign as part of the Liberals for Yes movement. We encourage all Australians to vote YES at the upcoming referendum. For background, Uphold and Recognise was founded in 2015 and our key achievements include:
2015
Uphold & Recognise’s founders, Julian Leeser and Damien Freeman, publish The Australian Declaration of Recognition in which they make the conservative case that symbolic language recognising Indigenous peoples should not be inserted in the Constitution but rather in an extra-constitutional declaration. This proposal is adopted by the Referendum Council in its final report.
Damien Freeman, Noel Pearson and Julian Leeser launching The Australian Declaration of Recognition at State Library of NSW in 2015
2016
Uphold & Recognise’s directors contribute to The Forgotten People: Liberal and conservative approaches to recognising indigenous peoples, bringing together a range of liberals and conservatives supporting extra-constitutional symbolic recognition and a substantive constitutional provision for an Indigenous advisory body. These proposals are adopted by the Referendum Council in its final report.
Jeff Kennett launching The Forgotten People at Melbourne Town Hall in 2016
2017
Uphold & Recognise publishes Warren Mundine’s Practical Recognition from the Mobs’ Perspective, which is the first paper to call for a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to a mechanism for hearing Indigenous voices. This approach is adopted by the federal government in its response to implementing the Co-Design process’s recommendations.
2018
Uphold & Recognise and collaborators publish Upholding the Big Ideas which provides options for the detail that the Uluru Statement’s “big ideas” previously lacked. This was an important resource cited extensively in the final report of the Joint Select Committee chaired by Senator Patrick Dodson and Julian Leeser MP.
Rachel Perkins, Greg Craven, Michael Kirby, Noel Pearson and Sean Gordon launching Upholding the Big Ideas at NSW Parliament House in 2018
2019
Uphold & Recognise organises a legal symposium at Gilbert + Tobin at which former Chief Justice Murray Gleeson delivers a paper, Recognition in Keeping with the Constitution, supporting the proposal for an Indigenous advisory body in the Constitution.
Danny Gilbert, Chief Justice Murray Gleeson and Greg Craven launching Recognition in Keeping with the Constitution in 2019
2020
Uphold & Recognise publishes Kerry Pinkstone’s paper, Anchoring our Commitment in the Constitution, which proposes a means for finding common ground between Indigenous aspirations expressed in the Uluru Statement and the concerns expressed in the Government’s response to the recommendations of the Referendum Council.
Kerry Pinkstone and Senator Andrew Bragg
2021
Pinkstone’s approach to finding common ground is advocated by Senator Andrew Bragg in his Buraadja: the liberal case for national reconciliation. The book was published with a foreword by the prime minister and launched in various capital cities by the premiers of New South Wales and South Australia, the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians and the federal Treasurer.
Rachel Perkins, Senator Andrew Bragg and Theresa Ardler at the launch of Buraadja: the liberal case for national reconciliation in 2021
2023
Uphold and Recognise Directors authored a paper for the Centre for Independent Studies titled Guaranteeing a Grassroots Megaphone: A centre-right approach to hearing Indigenous voices. Authors Greg Craven and Damien Freeman posit that it is possible to design legislation that addresses most reasonable concerns around the Voice. Their paper also suggests four ways in which draft legislation could achieve this.