Noel Pearson praises Pauline Hanson’s defence of Julian Assange, by Scott Henry.

Noel Pearson has heaped praise on Pauline Hanson and suggested the One Nation leader could well become “a great champion’’ for indigenous Australians.

Mr Pearson, an adviser to the Cape York Partnership and co-chair of Good to Great Schools Australia, says Senator Hanson is a political figure who stands up for the “powerless, forgotten people, whether asylum seekers, indigenous people or those left behind by globalisation’’.

In an opinion article for News Corp newspapers, Mr Pearson applauds her “principled call’’ for a presidential pardon for Julian Assange which he says shines “an important light on the selective standards of many Australians and particularly the freedom-loving right of Australian politics’’.

Earlier this month Senator Hanson announced she would petition the Australian and American governments to work on the immediate release of “political prisoner” Mr Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for four years fearing extradition to Sweden then the US.

hat-tip Stephen Neil