Mike Rann

Actor

BIOGRAPHY

Michael David Mike Rann , (born 5 January 1953) was the 44th Premier of South Australia from 2002 to 2011. He accepted a professorship at Flinders University and a visiting fellowship at University of Auckland in 2012, was Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2014, and was Australias Ambassador to Italy, Albania, Libya and San Marino and as Australias Permanent Representative to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme from 2014 to 2016. Among several other honours, Rann was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) at Australia Day in 2016.Rann succeeded Lynn Arnold as leader of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party and South Australian Leader of the Opposition in 1994. Rann led Labor to minority government at the 2002 election, before attaining a landslide win at the 2006 election. The Rann Government was elected to a third four-year term at the 2010 election, retaining majority government despite a swing − giving Labor a record 12 years in government. He resigned as Premier in October 2011 after a year of poor opinion polling saw him lose party support and was succeeded by Jay Weatherill. Rann is the third-longest serving Premier of South Australia behind Thomas Playford IV and John Bannon − the third-longest serving Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 2002 behind Mick OHalloran and Robert Richards − and served a record 17 years as South Australian Labor parliamentary leader from 1994 to 2011. He was a South Australian MP in the House of Assembly from the 1985 election and Father of the House from the 2010 election until his parliamentary resignation on 13 January 2012.The Labor government Rann formerly led, through Weatherill, became the longest-serving South Australian Labor government and the second longest-serving South Australian government behind the Playmander-assisted Thomas Playford IV. Aside from Playford, the 2014 election was the second time that any party has won four consecutive state elections in South Australia, the first occurred when Don Dunstan led Labor to four consecutive victories between the 1970 election and the 1977 election. Following the 2014 election, Labor went from minority to majority government when Nat Cook won the 2014 Fisher by-election by five votes from a 7.3 percent two-party swing.Achievements of the Rann Government include job numbers raised and unemployment lowered, funding increased for health and education, the expansion of mining and defence industries, investment in wind power in South Australia making it the leader of wind power in Australia, and funding increased for new projects including: the Adelaide tram extension and new vehicle purchase, commencement of the rail electrification of Adelaides train lines, construction commencement of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, redevelopment of the Adelaide Oval, expansion of the Adelaide Convention Centre, upgrade of the River Torrens Riverbank precinct, construction of the Port Stanvac Desalination Plant, and the undertaking of various major road works including major upgrades to the North–South Corridor and South Road, aiming to be stop-free by 2030 for over 100 km from Old Noarlunga in the outer southern metropolitan Adelaide suburbs through to Nuriootpa in the inner northern rural area around the Barossa Valley, such as construction of the Anzac Highway underpass and construction commencement (now built) of the elevated North-South Motorway/South Road Superway, construction of the Port River Expressway and Northern Expressway, the upgrade of the Sturt Highway, the duplication and expansion of the Southern Expressway and plans for the construction (now in-progress) of the Northern Connector to join up the Superway and Expressway. His government also introduced Adelaides Thinker in Residence program. South Australia achieved a AAA credit rating under the Rann Labor government, prompting Business SA chief executive Peter Vaughan to praise Labors economic management. Rann was often the most popular Premier in the country, with his approach to government generally moderate and crisis-free. Following the 2006 election landslide where Labor was re-elected with a historic 56.8 percent two-party-preferred vote, Newspoll early in 2007 saw Rann peak at a historic 64 percent Preferred Premier rating with a historic 61 percent Labor two-party-preferred vote. University of Adelaide Professor of Politics Clem Macintyre said that after John Bannon and the State Bank collapse, Rann had to re-establish Labors credentials as an economic manager as a matter of urgency, and in that sense Rann had a whole lot of priorities to concentrate on that Don Dunstan didnt even think about, with a legacy built on economic achievements, achieving the triple-A credit rating, as well as its capacity to deliver infrastructure projects.

Bio from Wikipedia - See more on en.wikipedia.org Text under CC-BY-SA license

Playlist

FILMOGRAPHY