Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin, DBE (July 28 1908 - August 30 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. Annabelle Rankin 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 She was elected to the Senate in 1946, as a representative of the Queensland Liberal-Country Party. Her term began on July 1, 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 January 26 1966 Prime Minister Harold Holt appointed her Minister for Housing. She resigned from the government 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. The Electoral Division of Rankin is named in her honour. She died, unmarried, in 1986, aged 78.
