Annette was educated in Perth, where her political interests were awakened by the Spanish Civil War, which led her to join the Anti-Fascist League and, in 1941, the Communist Party of Australia.
Moving to Sydney, she worked for the party, was briefly jailed for her role in a protest supporting Indonesian independence, and developed a friendship with Katharine Susannah Prichard.
[1] Having met prominent communist Sam Aarons in Sydney, she married him and returned to Perth; they had one son, Gerald, in 1949.
In the late 1950s Annette and Gerald were flown to China by the Maoist government to visit Sam, who had suffered a heart attack; The West Australian alleged that Mao Zedong was so impressed by her that he "made it clear that a place was waiting for her as his consort".
Sam Aarons died in 1971 and Annette remarried Duncan Cameron, who was also an active communist; they were leading organisers of the Vietnam War moratoriums and campaigned for Aboriginal rights.