Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

Career had several firsts

NZPA-AAP Brisbane The career of Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin, a former Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand, who died in Brisbane on Saturday aged 78, included several firsts. In 1946 she was elected to the Senate as a Queensland Liberal — the first Queensland woman to enter Federal Parliament. She was twice re-

elected to the Senate and was Minister of Housing from 1966 to 1971 — the first women to hold a Federal Ministry. She was also Liberal Party whip (the first female Government Whip in any British Parliament) a member of the parliamentary standing committee on broadcasting in 1947 and vice-president of the Queensland Liberal Party in 1949.

In 1957, she was made

a Dame of the British Empire on the recommendation of the then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies. The culmination of her career came when she was appointed, in June 1971, after 25 years in Parliament, Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand. She was the first Australian woman entitled to be called Her Excellency in her own right.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.
Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19860902.2.71.4

Bibliographic details

Press, 2 September 1986, Page 10

Word Count
174

Career had several firsts Press, 2 September 1986, Page 10

Career had several firsts Press, 2 September 1986, Page 10