Annabelle Rankin

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin DBE (28 July 1908 – 30 August 1986) was the second woman member of the Australian Senate, the first woman from Queensland to sit in the Parliament of Australia, the first woman to have a federal portfolio and the first woman to be appointed head of a foreign mission.

Biography

Rankin was born in Brisbane in 1908, and came from a Queensland political family; her father Colin Dunlop Wilson Rankin was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly. She was well known in the community for her public service though the CWA, Guides Australia, Red Cross and YWCA.^[1]

Rankin was elected to the Senate in the 1946 election, as a representative of the Liberal Party. Her term began on 1 July 1947. She was the first woman appointed as Opposition Whip in the Senate and, following the election of the Menzies government in 1949, also served as Government Whip in the Senate.

On 26 January 1966, Prime Minister Harold Holt appointed her Minister for Housing in his first ministry.

From 1968 to 1971 she was a joint "Father" of the Senate. She resigned from the Senate in 1971 and was made High Commissioner to New Zealand, a post she held to 1974. Following her retirement she returned to Brisbane where she continued to be involved in voluntary organisations.

She died, unmarried, in Queensland, aged 78, in 1986.^[1]

Honours

Annabelle Rankin was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) on 13 June 1957 for political and public services.^[2]

The Electoral Division of Rankin, which came into effect at the 1984 election, is named in her honour.

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