Lynn Arnold
Lynn Maurice Ferguson Arnold (born 27 January 1949) is an Australian Anglican priest and former politician who represented the South Australian branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He served as Premier of South Australia from 1992 to 1993 and as Leader of the Opposition from 1993 to 1994.
Arnold was born on 27 January 1949 in Durban, Union of South Africa. He attended Adelaide Boys' High School and had a politicised youth, joining the anti-Vietnam War movement at school actively opposing Australia's involvement and conscription. While at the University of Adelaide, he was a senior student activist, organising protests and episodes of civil disobedience that earned him multiple arrests. In 1970, he joined an International Fellowship of Reconciliation peace mission to Vietnam, which reinforced his dedication to non-violence and the power of collective civic opposition. Arnold's activism during this period reflected his commitment to peace, social justice, and democratic participation. He graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Arts in 1979.
Arnold worked first in secondary education and with the Society of Friends before being elected to the South Australian Parliament in 1979 as the Labor member for Salisbury. Over the following decade, he held a range of ministerial portfolios in John Bannon's government, including Education, Technology, Employment, and Industry, contributing to the state's economic transition towards high-technology and industrial development. He succeeded Bannon as premier in September 1992 following the State Bank collapse, leading efforts to stabilise the state's finances and reform the public sector. But Labor was comprehensively defeated in the 1993 election, in power for eleven years. Arnold lost his Ramsay seat, to Mike Rann, but won the new Taylor seat. He returned to office briefly as Leader of the Opposition before retiring from politics in September 1994, when Rann became party leader.
On retiring from the parliament in 1994, Arnold pursued senior company administration studies at ESADE in Barcelona before pursuing a career in humanitarian and community service. He served as chief executive for Anglicare and World Vision, most recently as Regional Vice President, Asia-Pacific. Concurrently with his professional life, he earned a PhD in sociolinguistics in 2003 from the University of Adelaide. Arnold subsequently headed Anglicare SA from 2008 to 2012 and headed the Don Dunstan Foundation from 2010 to 2020. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 2014 and worked concurrently with public life, hosting a weekly radio program and serving as a reader of public theology at St Barnabas Theological College. In 2022 he learned from a partial ASIO document that he had been spied on since his anti–Vietnam War activism, news that left him both reflective and upset.
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