The name is absent

court on a charge of failing to register for National Service

which Aborigines were exempt:

There's no evidence of him living in a native camp,
and he apparently lives at a normal address in Perth.

I must also take note of his appearance.

dressed and well-presented. I'm going to

According to the magistrate's definition, Aborigines lived
on reserves, at not-normal addresses, were badly dressed, and
presented only negative characteristics.

Aboriginal identity was thus nihilated by being located by
official identification in a totally negative universe of meaning.

Conversely, if the dominant society needed him, in time of war,
the Aborigine was not permitted to identify as Aborigine, since
this was a negative identity and only those with positive identity
were permitted to go to war. Ergo, the Aborigine for this purpose
was no longer an Aborigine.

It would appear, that while 'blood' (presumably meaning the
ability to trace ancestry) in theory was used as a basis for
identification, in practice 'blood' was equated with colour as
the basis of classification, a category that was also associated
with culture (or sub-culture in the case of 'half-castes') which
in turn was associated with negative attributes.

The negative nature of Aboriginality and its association with
colour is shown by the fact that those Aboriginal people who had
positive attributes and who were light enough to 'pass' as white
could be 'exempted' from being Aboriginal. The 1939 Act of South

Australia defined all people of Aboriginal descent as Aboriginal,
unless, in the light of their character and standard of intelligence
and development, they had been 'exempted'.

In other states, such exemption could be revoked (Rowley,
1971:48), adding further uncertainty to identification.

The identity card showing exemption had to be carried at all times
to establish a person's right to be in an area where white people
were found.

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