ABSTRACT
The injustice of state classificatory logic resonates strongly with the struggles of Indigenous Australians for rights, justice and sovereignty. This chapter describes the best efforts of local medical and legal practitioners in providing evidence for Indigenous Australians to lawfully gain access to the DSP, the continuing retraction of this support has resulted in the rejection of many of their legitimate claims. The establishment of Australian sovereignty, territory and jurisdiction, with its emergence as a constitutional nation state, resulted in a consolidation of ideas on Indigeneity and disability through the governing colonial ideology of its time – eugenics. The shifting of official classificatory regimes of 'persons' under Australian sociolegal regimes has been a core feature of Australia's colonial history since European invasion in 1788. Australian Indigenous scholar Maggie Walter has clearly argued that historical processes of nation state formation and colonial management practices define existing processes of population identification.
