Michael David Rann, , (born 5 January 1953) is an Australian former politician who was the 44th premier of South Australia from 2002 to 2011. He was later Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2014, and Australian ambassador to Italy, Albania, Libya and San Marino from 2014 to 2016. Rann grew up in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, completing a Bachelor and Master of Arts in political science at the University of Auckland. Before entering Parliament, Rann worked as an advisor to South Australian Labor Parliamentarians. Rann became leader of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party and South Australian Leader of the Opposition in 1994 and led the party to minority government at the 2002 election. He resigned as Premier in October 2011 and was succeeded by Jay Weatherill. Rann is the third-longest serving Premier of South Australia behind Thomas Playford IV and John Bannon 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. Early life Rann was born in Sidcup, Kent. His father was an electrician who had served at El Alamein in World War II. His mother was employed in an armaments factory. Most of Rann's childhood was spent in the care of his father in South London. In 1962, when he was nine, his family emigrated from Blackfen to Mangakino, a small town north of Taupo on the Waikato River in New Zealand. His family then moved to Matamata, then to Birkenhead, New Zealand on Auckland's North Shore where he attended Northcote College. He completed a Bachelor and a Master of Arts in political science at the University of Auckland. He was Vice President of the New Zealand Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and editor of the student newspaper Craccum. 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 New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. Haydon Manning has stated that "it was reported that" Rann "struggled with being an objective reporter". Rann visited his brother Chris in Adelaide during 1977. Shortly afterwards he moved to that city, to carry