Dame Annabelle Jane Mary RankinDBE (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.
Dame Annabelle Jane Mary RankinDBE (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.
Rankin was born in Brisbane and came from a political family in Queensland; 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.
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. Annabelle Rankin was appointed to the Order of the British Empire - Dames Commander on 13 June 1957 for political and public services. On 26 January 1966, Prime Minister Harold Holt appointed her Minister for Housing.
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.
The Electoral Division of Rankin is named in her honour.