Mike Rann

The Honourable Mike Rann MHA
44th Premier of South Australia Elections: 1997, 2002, 2006
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 March 2002
Preceded by	Rob Kerin
Constituency	Ramsay
Personal details
Born	(1953-01-05) 5 January 1953 Sidcup, Kent, United Kingdom
Nationality	Australian
Political party	Australian Labor Party
Spouse(s)	Jenny Russell Sasha Carruozzo
Profession	Journalist

Michael David Rann (born 5 January 1953), Australian politician, is the 44th Premier of South Australia, serving since the 2002 election. He has been the parliamentary leader of the South Australian branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 1994, and a South Australian MP since the 1985 election.

Early life

Rann was born in Sidcup, Kent, United Kingdom, to working-class parents. Most of his childhood was spent with his father, an electrician in south London. During his father's service in the second world war at El Alamein, his mother was employed in an armaments factory. Rann's family emigrated from Blackfen to a rural village in New Zealand in 1962.

He completed a Bachelor and a Master of Arts in political science at the University of Auckland. He enjoyed and participated in student politics, including becoming a member of the New Zealand Greenpeace executive that sent Greenpeace III to Mururoa Atoll in 1972 in the campaign against French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean. As a member of Princes Street Labour, he also spent considerable time working on New Zealand Labour Party campaigns including that of Mike Moore. After university, Rann was a political journalist for the now defunct New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. It was reported that he struggled with being an objective reporter.

Rann attended his brother's wedding in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1977, and shortly afterwards moved there to accept a position with Premier Don Dunstan's Unit for Industrial Democracy. He worked for Dunstan as his press secretary, speech writer and adviser, and went on to serve Labor premiers Des Corcoran and John Bannon in the same capacities after Dunstan's retirement from politics.

One commentator reports that Rann was "frankly inspired by Dunstan's idealism" as opposed to "Bannon's cool electoral pragmatism". Rann sometimes talked during this period of his ambitions to one day become Premier. Rann wrote speeches on and assisted in policy development for civil liberties, land, gay and women's rights, and opposition to uranium mining, revealing a vein of idealism, his early predilection was left of centre.

Parliament

Rann was elected to Parliament as the Member for Briggs at the 1985 election. After the 1989 election, he entered the ministry, becoming Minister for Employment and Further Education, Minister of Youth Affairs, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Minister assisting in Ethnic Affairs. After Bannon resigned as premier over the State Bank collapse, Rann became Minister for Business and Regional Development, Minister of Tourism and Minister of State Services in the Lynn Arnold cabinet from September 1992.

When Briggs was abolished in an electoral redistribution, Rann was elected to the seat of Ramsay at the 1993 election. At the election, Labor lost government in a landslide due to the State Bank. Rann was promoted to deputy leader of his party following the defeat, however Arnold resigned as leader in September 1994. Rann became leader with the support of Labor Right powerbroker Don Farrell, who promised Rann two terms in the position. Rann achieved a 9.5 percent two party preferred swing to Labor in the 1997 election, narrowly failing to win government.

Premier

Former Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam with wife Margaret at the wedding of Mike Rann and Sasha Carruozzo in July 2006.

Rann remained Leader of the Opposition until the 2002 election, at which he won enough seats to form a government and become Premier on 6 March 2002 with the support of an independent MP, Peter Lewis. Lewis' decision was controversial, but Rann later secured the support of conservative independent Rory McEwen and the Nationals' Karlene Maywald by adding them to his cabinet, and Bob Such as speaker.

Mike Rann with former US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick in November 2005.

Mike Rann at National Sorry Day in Elder Park, Adelaide, for the apology to the stolen generations in February 2008.

Mike Rann (right) with Minister for Transport Pat Conlon (left) opening the extension of the Glenelg Tram line in October 2007.

Rann led Labor to its strongest win, from a two-party preferred low of 39% in 1993 under Lynn Arnold, to 56.8% at the March 2006 state election leaving the opposition with 15 of 47 seats.

In addition to Premier, Rann is also the current Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, and Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change.

Rann was appointed chairman of a new Australian Federation Council in July 2006, a council which aims to improve state-federal ties. Rann also ran for national presidency in the National Executive in August 2006, and made senior-vice presidency on 27% of the vote. As such, he also served a rotation of the Presidency of the ALP National Executive in 2008.

Although seen as pragmatic rather than reformist, some commentators point to innovative policies in his governments creation of boards, from the presidential nature of the boards' appointment, to their independence from government, to their roles as monitors of policy progress. As such, Rann is sometimes considered closer to Dunstan than to Bannon. Rann is not aligned to either of Labor's factions.

Rann has also personally likened his government to Dunstan's, stating "I'm a totally different person to Don Dunstan, but in the '70s for different reasons South Australia stood head and shoulders above the crowd. We stood out, we were leaders. Interestingly, the federal Government is setting up a social inclusion unit based on ours. Again it's about us not only making a difference locally, but being a kind of model for others, which is what Dunstan used to say he wanted us to be ... a laboratory and a leader for the future." Rann says he expects other reforms to be based upon those enacted under his government, citing the state's strategic plan, a 10-year framework for development for government and business, of which the New South Wales government will be adopting. "It's a plan for the state, not just promises at each election. A lot of colleagues interstate thought I'd gone mad when we named targets. Well we didn't want to set targets we could easily pass and then pat ourselves on the back for, what's the point of that?"

Rann has been a very popular Premier with the best polls for a state government in the country, with his approach generally moderate and crisis free. Polling by Newspoll has seen Rann achieve a historic 64 percent as Preferred Premier, and 61 percent on the two-party preferred vote. However, fourth quarter 2007 polling marked a turning point for Rann's Labor government since the previous election, on 54 percent of the two party vote, a fall from the previous poll of five percent. Rann's Preferred Premier rating was at 50 percent compared to 25 percent for then Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith. Third quarter 2008 polling saw a continued drop in the primary vote, down three to 38 percent, with the Liberal vote up five to 40 percent, breaking 50-50 after preferences - the Preferred Premier figure recorded a six-point drop to 48 percent for Rann and up three to 30 percent for Hamilton-Smith. Some commentators put the poll slump down to "labour movement ructions" over the underfunded WorkCover liability (see 2008 Parnell–Bressington filibuster), consolidation of rural health services, and the continued degradation of the River Murray. However, Newspoll saw Labor back in a winning position on 54 to 46 in late 2008, and then 56 to 44 in early 2009 along with increases in the Preferred Premier rating. Polling taken from The Sunday Mail during the 50-50 polling suggested that whilst there had been large swings away from the government in country areas, polling was holding relatively firm at 2006 election levels in the metropolitan areas. However, this did not play out at the 2009 Frome by-election, which saw Labor pick up a small increase in the two-party vote. This, coupled with the "dodgy documents affair", also known as "dodgy-gate", saw Hamilton-Smith step down from the Liberal leadership, to be replaced by Isobel Redmond.

Personal life

Rann was married to Jenny Russell until the late 1990s and had two children with her, David and Eleanor. On 15 July 2006, he married his second wife, actress and Greens member Sasha Carruozzo.

Affair allegations

On 22 November 2009, Seven Network's Sunday Night current affairs program aired a paid television interview alleging that Rann had an affair with a Parliament House waitress between March 2004 and October 2005. She blamed the affair for the break up of her marriage, stating "I lost my family over this", although she later revealed that she wanted her estranged husband back.

The lady said her husband became aware of her relationship with Rann in 2005, and that her husband wrote a series of letters to the Premier. At a Labor Party fundraiser at the National Wine Centre on 1 October 2009, a man later identified as her husband was observed to have hit Rann in the face several times with a rolled-up magazine. An aggravated assault charge was laid over the matter. The charge was subsequently downgraded to basic assault.

Rann commented before the interview went to air that claims of a sexual relationship were "wildly sensational", and that once he had seen the program, he would respond with a "brief statement". He also expressed frustration that he had been unable to "clear the air" because matters were before a court.

On 23 November 2009, the day after the allegations were aired, Rann called a press conference where he denied the allegations made in the interview, stating that they were malicious lies aimed at damaging him politically and personally. He said, "I have not had sex with her", that he had "never ever hid the fact that I had a friendship with" the lady "over many, many years, and that friendship was one that was based on confidences and discussions, it was funny, it was flirty, just like any other friendship would be". Rann also responded that "Channel Seven's program was, in my view, outrageous."

Polling was conducted by The Advertiser in December 2009 with answers to questions revealing little voter interest in the matter, and that Labor had remained steady with 57 percent of the two-party vote since the previous election.

Honours

Rann was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to New Zealand-Australian relations, in the New Year's Day Honours of 2009.

See also

• South Australian state election, 2010

External links

• Parliament profile
• Premier profile
• Premiers and Ministers profile
• ALP profile
• Poll Bludger article
• The Global Townhall - Interview and Pictures