We understand this is busy time of year for everyone. Therefore make sure you have the AFIF 2013 Conference in your diary for the 15 - 17 May 2013.

Canberra will be a hive of activity at the time of the conference, which starts only days after the Federal Budget is announced. In keeping with this theme, we are delighted to announce that the opening speaker for the conference will help us understand some of the 'political speak' surrounding the Budget and what it means for us all - both in business and personally.

OPENING SPEAKER: PETER HARTCHER

Peter Hartcher is the Political Editor and the International Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is also chair editor of The Diplomat magazine, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.

Hartcher is a three-time foreign correspondent who has worked as a journalist for 25 years writing about politics, economics and foreign affairs. Before taking his current position at The Herald, Hartcher wrote for the Australian Financial Review for a decade. He worked as its Washington bureau chief, its Asia-Pacific Editor and its Tokyo bureau chief.

Over a career of 25 years Peter Hartcher has developed a reputation as an authoritative, nonpartisan reporter, analyst and speaker. As a Journalist, Peter Hartcher has a distinguished career. He won a Gold Walkley Award, for his investigative series into how Australia secretly negotiated a security treaty with Indonesia. He won the Citibank award for business reporting for his coverage of the Asian economic crisis, and was a Walkley finalist in 1992 for an investigative account of how Paul Keating challenged Bob Hawke for the Prime Ministership of Australia. Hartcher was nominated again in 2003 for his analysis of US motives for the invasion of Iraq.

Peter Hartcher has also been commissioned to write essays on Asia for the Washington-based foreign policy journal, The National Interest. Additionally, Peter writes for The Diplomat magazine, London Financial Times and The American Interest. He's been interviewed by NPR, CNN, BBC and ABC, among others.

Peter Hartcher is the Author of numerous books. His latest, Bipolar Nation: How to Win the 2007 Election, was published as the first Quarterly Essay of this year. The essay was Australia's bestselling nonfiction work in independent bookstores. His other works include, Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing Seven Trillion Dollars, was published in the US in 2006. His other book, The Ministry, is a window onto Japan's disastrous bubble economy and an insight into how Japan works. Business Week described it as 'a dazzling mix of case studies, juicy anecdotes, and analysis' that was 'key to understanding the recent past and future of Japan's political economy.'

Preliminary details are available on the conference website www.afif.asn.au/conference but stay tuned for further updates which will be posted to the website or emailed directly to you.

Registration will open in early February 2013, but if you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact the Conference Secretariat.


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