Dr Vince Scappatura from Macquarie University’s department of modern history, politics and international relations is an expert in Australian/US relations with a book based on his PhD thesis due out later this year with the working title Power and Influence: The US lobby and Australian defence policy.

“Soft power and influence is a very topical theme at the moment and while China’s influence is significant and worthy of concern, by far the most dominant influence comes from the US, and it goes largely unmentioned,” Dr Scappatura said.

He cited the Australian American Leadership Dialogue as an example of the sort of “relationship management” that the US undertook to ensure the “orthodoxy” of the Australian-US alliance continued.

Led by a board of political, business and academic identities, the dialogue’s current co-chairmen are Labor’s Kim Beazley and former National Party leader Mark Vaile.

Dr Scappatura referred to a speech Mr Beazley made to the Australian Naval Institute in 2016 after six years as US ambassador, in which he described the “shock” he felt when he “got to the United States to discover that we were vastly more deeply engaged with the Americans than we were during the Cold War”.

Dr Scappatura said there was room for a “legitimate debate about whether an ever-closer relationship with the US is in our best interests” but covert “soft power influence” was helping to “shut down that debate”.

He said a “deep state” in both countries existed regardless of which political parties were in power.

Event spokesperson Rod Noble said Saturday’s “broad left” function was open to all and organised by the ALP left, the Search Foundation, the Progressive Labour Party and various “non-party left” people.

The main annual gathering, the Red Flag dinner in November, had been going for more than 25 years.

“It’s a very popular get-together that helps unite the left in common cause,” Mr Noble said.

The function, at Carrington Bowling Club, starts at 7pm with food available from 6pm.

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