Australian American Leadership Dialogue

Australian American Leadership Dialogue

The Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD) is a private diplomatic initiative, which brings together Australian and American leaders from government, enterprise, media, education and the community in a very selective recruitment process of agents of influence in the elites, especially from the junior partner Australia.

Despite officially being private, it has heavy government involvement from both sides.

"The AALD is arguably the mos valuable private sector foreign policy initiative ever undertaken in Australia" and "the most important of all non-government organisations dedicated to the strengthening of the Australia-US alliance in all its manifestations, civil, political and commercial" Supporters say that "it is a vital but largely invisible part of the alliance infrastructure" and "a semi-secret of the alliance" The AALD leadership gives high priority to binding leaders and young cadre from the Australian Labor Party to the alliance, thus leaving some of the right wing AALD participants dissatisfied with lack of pace in commitment to free trade and military cooperation.

History

AALD was founded in 1992 by former Coca-Cola Amatil executive and later Australian consul-general in New York, Phil Scanlon, Since then, leaders have gathered at AALD programs in various cities across the two nations to shape the direction of the bilateral relationship.

The first meeting was held in Washington DC on 11-13 June 1993 with 35 participants. Since then, it has grown and can include up to 150 participants. In total (between 1993 and 2008) an estimated 360 delegates have attended the meetings., around 60% Australian and 40% American.

Participants in 1993 founding meeting

Richard Armitage, Judith Hipplier Bello, Sandra Yates, Richard Woolcott, Stephen Bollenback, Dick Cheney, Patricia Ann Turner, Warwick L. Smith, James Gorelick, David D. Hale, Gregory Paul Sheridan, Emery Severin, Robert D. Hormats, Phillip Lader, Phil Scanlan, Kevin Rudd, Franklin Lavin, Jim Leach, Irene Kwong Moss, David Kemp, Winston Lord, Paul London, Steve Howard, Jill Hickson, Kevin Nealer, Douglas Paal, Carolyn Hewsen, NIcholas Greiner, Karl Rove, Thomas Scneider, Ros Garnaut, Robert B. Zoellick, Nick Bolkusm, Peter Cook and Paul D. Wolfowitz.