John Olsen

John Wayne Olsen, AO (born 7 June 1945) was Premier of South Australia between 28 November 1996 and 22 October 2001.

John Olsen was a member of the Liberal Party and Member of Parliament for more than 20 years. His political career was marked by a bitter rivalry with Dean Brown, the two representing the conservative and moderate wings of the South Australian Liberal Party respectively. In 1982, after the electoral defeat and retirement of David Tonkin, Olsen defeated Brown for the State Liberal Party leadership. Up against the popular Labor premier John Bannon, Olsen lost the 1985 and 1989 elections. He moved to the Australian Senate between 1990 and 1992, before returning to state politics at a 1992 Kavel by-election, on the same day as Dean Brown at a 1992 Alexandra by-election. This time, Brown defeated Olsen in the leadership ballot, and became premier when the Liberals won in the 1993 election landslide where the Liberals won 37 of the 47 seats available. But in 1996 Olsen again challenged for the party leadership, this time becoming South Australian Premier.

The Liberal Party narrowly won the subsequent election in 1997, being forced to rely on the support of three new conservative independents.

Among a number of controversial policies, Olsen's government undertook the privatisation of the state-owned electricity industry (ETSA), partly to improve the government's fiscal position (caused by the State Bank disaster) and partly in response to the introduction of the Australian National Electricity Market, despite promising not to do so at the 1997 election. The fiscal arguments for privatisation were vigorously criticised by a number of economists. Sharp increases in the retail price of electricity, a consequence of the working of the National Electricity Market, contributed to the growing unpopularity of the government.

Olsen resigned as Premier following an adverse report from an inquiry into his questionable dealings with the Motorola company in 2001, known as the Motorola affair, which revealed that Olsen had misled parliament, as well as representations made by Olsen to Chief Magistrate Jim Cramond labeled "misleading and inaccurate", "dishonest" and had "no factual basis".^[1]

Since leaving South Australian politics, John Olsen was appointed by the Federal Liberal government as Australian Consul-General to Los Angeles.^[2] On 7 December 2005, his Liberal Party colleague and fellow South Australian, the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer announced that John Olsen would become the new Australian Consul-General in New York.^[3] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in January 2007.

References

External links

• SA Parliament past premier John Olsen
• Diplomatic Appointment of John Olsen to Australian Consul-General in New York .
• "The unluckiest politician in Australia". Crikey. Archived from the original on 2005-12-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20040822011655/http://www.crikey.com.au/politics/2001/10/21-olsen.print.html. 

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