Annie Maas O’Keefe arrived in Australia as a wartime evacuee from Indonesia. She later married an Australian, but in early 1949 she and her children were told by the Minister of Immigration that they would be deported.

O’Keefe fought the ruling and the case became the first successful legal challenge to the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, otherwise known as the White Australia Policy.

The O’Keefe Deportation Case made international news. It is considered a significant event in Australia’s immigration history for its role in the eventual dismantling of the White Australia Policy.