As the Australian election drew to a close and the long US election season started to ramp up, CPD was fortunate to be joined by Ali Sutton, a political campaigner and social policy expert from the United States.
Ali was part of then-Illinois State Senator Barrack Obama’s early field operation in Iowa ahead of the 2007 Iowa caucuses, and served as field director for ‘Americans Abroad for Obama’ during the 2008 Presidential campaign. She went on to work in various roles in Washington D.C., including as a presidential appointee in the Department of Health and Human Services. In that role much of Ali’s work focused on the welfare of children who had fled to the US from central America or were affected by detention or deportation of a parent.
Ali Sutton talks about #DNCinPHL, #FeelTheBern, #ImWithHer and #UnitedDems on #PlanetAmerica https://t.co/swDFDH6zMp pic.twitter.com/h2FsPLkP5k
— Rob Sturrock@CPD (@RobSturrock_CPD) July 29, 2016
Ali drew on this expertise while at CPD to help organise a high-level roundtable on resettlement services for humanitarian refugees, connecting experts from Australia, the US, the UK and Germany to discuss new insights and approaches from around the world.
Ali also found time to join John Barron and Chas Licciardello as a panelist on two episodes of the ABC’s Planet America program, to discuss the ins and outs of the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
You can see these episodes in full below:
