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Meet the TFFF scholarship recipients embarking on the 30th Australian Rural Leadership Program


The Tim Fairfax Family Foundation (TFFF) and Ningana Trust have engaged with eleven cycles of the Australian Rural Leadership Program (ARLP) in its 30-year history, sponsoring the participation of fifteen community leaders across the Northern Territory and Queensland during that time.

In November 2022, the TFFF invited its first multi-year funding agreement with the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, committing to supporting two untied ARLP scholarships annually for cohorts commencing in 2023-2025.


The first recipients of these new TFFF scholarships were recently announced as part of ARLP’s 30th anniversary cohort: Eileen Breen and Clive Liebmann.
You can read the complete list of ARLP Course 30 Leaders here, including ten participants from Queensland and two from the Northern Territory.

Eileen Breen

Girraween, NT

Eileen is the Business Development Manager forNTEX, her family-owned construction and demolition business that provides cutting-edge solutions in recycling and remanufacturing waste concrete and asphalt. She is also the co-founder of ecotourism venture Clove Tree Hill in Bali, Indonesia.

Eileen has an interest in circular economies and business sustainability initiatives and is currently completing a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Enterprise at Charles Darwin University as a pathway to an MBA. It’s already been a busy year for Eileen: winning the NT AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award and NTEX being shortlisted in the 2023 Australian Financial Review’s Sustainability Leaders roundup. 

Clive Liebmann

Lajamanu, NT

Clive works with the remote Warlpiri community of Lajamanu in the northern Tanami Desert. As a community development program manager, he oversees the delivery of youth diversion activities which are aligned with the Closing the Gap targets in health, education, and quality of life.

In applying to the ARLP, Clive said “… as a non-Indigenous person working in the remote Indigenous sector, I believe that leadership must strike a balance between advocacy, action and knowing when to step back to ensure there is space for Indigenous leaders to lead in their own right.”


The ARLP is the flagship program of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF). Completed over fifteen months, it is the most in-depth, cross-sectoral, national leadership program for rural, regional and remote Australians and produces leaders who can influence and advocate in authentic and ethical ways. With over 2000 alumni, the ARLP is building a network of people who are committed to fostering thriving communities and industries, where people work with one another and the environment around them; respectfully, boldly and intuitively.

Applications for the next intake, ARLP Course 31, open on 2 June and close 16 July 2023.  Head to the ARLF website to register your interest, or shoulder tap a deserving colleague or friend for consideration. An Applicant Q&A Webinar will be held on 14 June (12.00pm-1.00pm AEST), featuring ARLP alumni and hosted by Matt Linnegar, ARLF Chief Executive. Register now.

TFFF is one of 26 scholarship partners making the program possible and accessible in 2023. If your organisation is interested in supporting a future untied ARLP scholarship, please visit the ARLF website.

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The Tim Fairfax Family Foundation is based in Meanjin (Brisbane).