President’s Dinner

From 6:30 pm

At Sydney EY

Level 34, 200 George Street Sydney

The Minister and Mr Wolpe will discuss Australian and US politics and Australia’s place in the world. With state elections in Victoria and NSW in coming months, a Federal election to be held in May next year or before, and with the US mid-term elections just being held, the discussion is very timely.

The Hon Paul Fletcher MP is the Minister for Families and Social Services. He entered Parliament in December 2009 as the Member for Bradfield; was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications in September 2013; Minister for Major Projects, Territories, and Local Government in September 2015; Minister for Urban Infrastructure in July 2016; Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities in December 2017, and appointed to his present role in August 2018.

Before entering Parliament, Paul was Director, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, at Optus for eight years; established a consulting firm serving the communications sector; and in 2009 his book about broadband, Wired Brown Land was published by UNSW Press. Earlier in his career Paul was Chief of Staff to the Minister for Communications in the Howard Government, Senator Richard Alston.

Mr Bruce Wolpe is a visiting fellow at the United States Studies Centre and is a contributor on US politics for Sky News. In recent years, he has worked with the Democrats in Congress during President Barack Obama's first term, and on the staff of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He has also served as the former PM's chief of staff. He is author of a new book, The Committee, a study of President Obama's legislative agenda in Congress (University of Michigan Press, 2018). From 1998-2009, Bruce was a senior executive at Fairfax Media in Sydney.