Who can ever forget the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; the environmental and civilian disasters of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima? And what about the threatening nuclear power on our doorstep in the form of China and its 400 nuclear warheads?

Nuclear power may be a low carbon emissions option, but it is also the dirtiest, most dangerous power generation and military option as well.

No solution has yet been found for the safe disposal of radioactive waste.

And no nuclear reactor is safe from meltdown, especially in the face of natural disasters and human operational failures.

This is one area where Australians, since 1972, have repeatedly said 'no way!'.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the phrase "urban myth" as: "A story or statement that is not true but is often repeated, and believed by many to be true."

This definition applies to the regularly aired claim by senior Aboriginal community leaders, that until the referendum in 1967, Aboriginals were legislated as part of a flora and fauna act of parliament and were not considered as human beings.

This claim is untrue. The RMIT ABC Fact Check webpage debunked this myth in 2018.

Not only is this claim an urban myth, there is no state or federal department that had a "Flora and Fauna Act" anywhere in Australian legal history. Let alone one that included Aboriginals.

One of the most high profile persons to refer to this myth is Linda Burney, now about to be sworn in as federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

Ms Burney is recorded in NSW Hansard in 2003. On becoming the first Indigenous member of the NSW Parliament, Linda Burney said in her maiden speech on May 6, 2003: "For the first 10 years of my life, like all Indigenous people at that time, I was not a citizen of this country. We existed under the flora and fauna act of New South Wales."

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What is puzzling is that senior Aboriginal community leaders locally have all been quoted recently in The Daily Advertiser also referring to this myth as though it was a fact.

In The DA on Friday, May 20 on page 6, Mark Saddler is quoted as saying: "You must understand that Wiradjuri people in my nation, here, we weren't counted as people until 1967."

In The DA on Saturday, May 21 on page 5, Uncle James Ingram is quoted as saying: "I would like to give non-Aboriginal people of Australia the chance to do what they done back in 1967, where they recognised us as human beings."

In the online version of The DA, dated May 24, Aunty Mary Atkinson is quoted as saying: "When I was born, in my first part of my years, I wasn't even considered to be a human being. I was considered to be part of flora and fauna."

Given the emphasis by the Aboriginal community on the need for "truth" and "truth telling" in the current quest for an Indigenous Voice in the Australian Parliament, this persistent misconstruction of the facts is quite disturbing.

In the long term, it only serves to devalue and de-legitimise the campaign in the public eye.

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