Noel Pearson says he is approaching the referendum results with a mixture of hope and terror. Terror obviously, because of the possibility that a ‘No’ result will intensify the division and racism stirred up by the ‘No’ campaign.
As a fervent and active ‘Yes’ campaigner, I also feel Pearson’s terror, but as for hope, I actually feel something stronger than hope.
As the days go by, and I meet up with my fellow campaigners to work at information stalls at the markets and on the streets, and in reading the daily flood of upbeat messages from ‘Yes’ HQ, I am feeling a deeper and deeper sense of achievement. An achievement of being part of a powerful change, an upwelling of a wave of fellowship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians that has almost arrived at ‘critical mass’.
It has been slow coming, but it is now more than a wary acceptance – it is a genuine and warm partnership – a kind of a group hug, a dawning realisation that we are all brothers and sisters. A large swathe of non-Indigenous Australia seems to have finally discovered our humanity.
And it is not just a ‘Byron thing’. I sense it’s happening all around the country, sometimes in unlikely places, notwithstanding the challenge of the malignancy and madness of the ‘post truth’ phenomenon and racist fearmongering.
Many of us are now happily embracing the generous and poetic invitation of friendship and community expressed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart and have started the walk around the sacred rock of solidarity to go across the continent as one family. We have found our collective Voice, and it is growing louder.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
