Unsolved:Flora and Fauna Act

Short description: Non-existent law that is at the heart of an urban myth about the rights of Indigenous Australians

The "Flora and Fauna Act" is a non-existent law that is at the heart of an urban myth about the rights of Indigenous Australians. The myth falsely claims that Indigenous Australians were legally considered animals by the Australian government. More specific iterations claim that the act was repealed by the 1967 referendum about Aboriginal affairs.

Linda Burney, the first Aboriginal woman elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and Australian House of Representatives, incorrectly claimed in her maiden speech in 2003 that she had spent the first ten years of her life under the Flora and Fauna Act. In 2018, actress Shareena Clanton claimed that her mother "was not considered a human being until the referendum came through from the Flora and Fauna Act in 1967".

Law professor Helen Irving has identified the "Flora and Fauna Act" myth as part of a series of myths about the 1967 referendum and the evolution of Aboriginal civil rights in general.

Origin

According to academic Marcia Langton, she first heard the term "Flora and Fauna Act" mentioned by filmmaker Lester Bostock at a council meeting in Canberra in the 1970s. Langton stated that she believed Bostock meant it in a metaphorical sense and she "had no idea that this would grow into the urban myth that it is today".

According to the Western Australian Museum, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 and similar acts in other states may have encouraged the development of the myth, as they included Aboriginal heritage sites in their purview. Before the creation of separate indigenous affairs departments, some states administered the area through combined departments that also dealt with wildlife. For example, Western Australia had a Department of Aborigines and Fisheries (1909–1920) and the federal government had a Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (1971–1972).