John Rau

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Mr. John Rau

John Rau is an Australian politician. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the South Australian House of Assembly since 2002, representing the electorate of Enfield. The 2006 election saw a swing of 8.6% to a margin of 24.5%.

Trained as a lawyer, Rau was admitted to the bar in 1981, and worked as an adviser to Hawke government ministers Mick Young, Michael Tate and Neal Blewett, from 1985 to 1988, when he ran as private legal practice in Adelaide, dealing in industrial, employment, commercial and personal injuries law. He has also served on the ALP State and National Executives at certain times.

His first political experience as an ALP candidate occurred at the 1993 Federal Election, when he stood for the Division of Hindmarsh, where he was narrowly defeated by Christine Gallus of the Liberal party by just 1.5%.

Prior to the 2002 State Election, Rau challenged the sitting Labor member for Enfield, Ralph Clarke in a pre-selection battle in the leadup to the 2002 state election. The local party branch overwhelmingly chose Clarke with 60 of 74 votes supporting Clarke, who had recently been deposed as the party's deputy leader after losing factional support, but the party's state executive stepped in and installed Rau as the endorsed candidate. Rau went on to a narrow victory over Clarke, who stood as and Independent Labor candidate for the seat.

He has also gained publicity in 2004 over his involvement in the Real Estate Industry - Reform bill, which was designed in an attempt to stop industry practices such as dummy bidding at auctions.

Rau lives in the suburb of Henley Beach, outside of his constituency, with his wife Anna, who is a councillor for the City of Charles Sturt, and their two children.