Mrs O'Keefe and the battle for White Australia
Sean Brawley
Margaret George Award, 2005
Public lecture presented at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra
1 June 2006
Arthur Calwell declared that the central pillar protecting the legislative and legal legitimacy of the White Australia Policy had been knocked down by the High Court in 1949 – by the decision that became known as the O'Keefe Deportation Case. In this paper Dr Sean Brawley traces the story of the O'Keefe case, from the 19th-century Dutch colonies of Ambon and Menado (in present-day Indonesia) to suburban Melbourne of the 1940s, exploring the events that led to the threatened deportation of Annie Maas Jacob O'Keefe and her children in 1949.
You can access the paper in pdf form at the bottom of this page.
 | Mrs Annie O'Keefe, formerly Jacob and eight children – Indonesians – Return to Indonesia | 1945–50 | A432, 1949/127 | |
| [Personal Papers of Prime Minister Chifley] Correspondence 'O', including representations relating to deportation of Mrs Annie O'Keefe and children | 1947–49 | M1455, 365 | |
| Deportations from Australia – Mrs O'Keefe and eight children | 1949–50 | A1838, 1477/2/11 | |
| O'Keefe Annie Maas versus Calwell Arthur Augustus; Priest Alan Hewitt; The Commonwealth of Australia | 1949 | A10075, 1949/3 | |
| O'Keefe Annie Maas versus Calwell Arthur Augustus; The Commonwealth of Australia | 1949 | A10075, 1949/11 | |
| O'Keefe, Annie Maas – Immigration Act 1901–40 – Prosecution | 1949 | MP401/1, CL31130 | |
 | Annie O'Keefe with her daughter, Mary Jacob, in 1956 | 1956 | A1501, A429/3 | |
| Mary and Peter Jacob, two of Annie and Samuel Jacob's children, with stepfather Jack O'Keefe on Bonbeach in 1956 | 1956 | A1501, A429/4 | |
