While the new Commonwealth parliament had been defining the Australian citizen, the States and Territories retained and exercised the power to determine the citizenship rights of ‘aboriginal natives’. In this chapter we provide an overview of the citizenship status of Australian Aborigines in the various State and Territory jurisdictions between the years 1901 and 1948, after which the Australian citizen became a legal entity. Our central argument is that the States became increasingly more authoritarian in their dealings with Aborigines, reaching a low point in the 1930s. This contributes to one main theme of the book by challenging the view that the various Australian parliaments began their dealings with Aborigines in hostility and moved progressively to adopt more liberal positions. It further illustrates a second main theme, that under Australia's federal Constitution the States are as significant as the Commonwealth in determining citizenship rights and entitlements.

Our focus in this chapter will largely be on the extraordinary amount of legislation passed in the various State and Territory jurisdictions in the first four decades of this century.