Michael Rann (born 1953), Australian politician, is Premier of South Australia. He is the parliamentary leader of the South Australian State Labor Party.
Rann was born in Sidcup, Kent, United Kingdom, to working-class parents who emigrated to New Zealand in 1962. He completed a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts (Political Studies) at the University of Auckland. While in New Zealand he was prominent in the campaign against French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean.
Rann was a political journalist for the now defunct New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation until 1977 when he moved to Adelaide and became press secretary and speech writer for the then Premier, Don Dunstan.
In 1985, Rann was elected to Parliament as the Member for Briggs and in December 1989 he became Minister for Employment and Further Education, Minister of Youth Affairs, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Minister assisting in Ethnic Affairs. After a cabinet reshuffle, Rann became Minister for Business and Regional Development, Minister of Tourism and Minister of State Services in September 1992.
When Labor lost government in December 1993, Rann was elected Deputy Leader of the Opposition and became leader in September 1994. He achieved a 9.4% swing to Labor in the 1997 election, but narrowly failed to win government. He remained Leader of the Opposition until the 2001 election, at which he won enough seats to form a government with the support of an independent MP, Peter Lewis .
