The Vincent Fairfax Fellowship
Program structure
The program comprises five phases. A more detailed examination of the aims, objectives and processes of each part of the program are sent to Fellows at appropriate times throughout the program. What follows is a brief overview with some examples listed for your further information.
Phase 1 – Ethics in Leadership – the Australian Context
Phase 1 takes place in the January following selection. It begins with a specially customised version of St James Ethics Centre’s Business Ethics for Leaders and Managers program. This is followed by an outdoor training and learning program, where participants explore aspects of their own personalities and leadership styles, and by an introduction to aboriginal culture at Jabiru in the Northern Territory.
Participants are then divided into groups of three or four to travel to remote Australian locations such as Gove, Groote Eylandt, Kununurra, Newman, Port Headland, German Creek and Weipa. There they gain insights into issues of isolation, harsh climate and environment, through spending time with local mining operators and aboriginal communities. The phase finishes in Canberra with a series of briefings on major policy issues and the workings of government.
Business ethics for leaders and managers
This Ethics Training program is specially customised for each group of Vincent Fairfax Fellows.
Cultural awareness
Fellows engage over two days, both in classroom and outdoors, with indigenous leaders and teachers with an interest in sharing their culture and forming a combined Australian culture for all.
Remote sites
Over the years Fellows have been hosted by:
- Dominions’ Mt Morgan;
- BHP Billiton's Newman, Port Headland, Groote Eylandt;
- Rio Tinto's Argyle Diamond Mines in WA, Alcan Weipa in QLD, Alcan Gove in NT;
- Anglocoal’s German Creek operation in QLD;
- Energy Resources of Australia (ERA);
- Otter Exploration in the Tanami Desert; and
- the Ngaanyatjarra People in Warburton
The host organisation sets the topic of the report. A sample of the topics are as follow:
- In what ways can the presence of ... be seen as good for Australia?;
- Prepare an independent analysis of corporate citizenship for ...;
- Report on ...'s role in the development of the local community;
- What responsibility does ... have to improve outcomes in the communities in which it operates?
Canberra
A number of key figures have met with the Fellows over the years and provided information about their role and responsibilities as well as their own thoughts and reflections – among them:
High Court Judges Justice Michael Kirby & Justice Mary Gaudron; Federal Ministers Tony Abbott MP, Ian Macfarlane MP & Dr Brendan Nelson; Federal Senators Bob McMullen & Margaret Reid; public servants Dr Peter Shergold, Harry Evans Clerk of the Senate, Barbara Belcher, 1st Assistant Secretary Government Division, Dept Prime Minister & Cabinet, Bill Farmer (then) Secretary, Dept of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs; and a host of decision makers and advisers such as Hugh White, Professor Strategic Studies & Head of Strategic & Defence Studies ANU, Jack Waterford Editor in Chief, Canberra Times, Graeme Samuel, Chairman ACCC, Dr Jim Peackock, CSIRO, Ted Evans AC, Barbara Hocking, first barrister to be briefed for Mabo land rights case; Geraldine Doogue; Ian Carroll; Senator Kate Lundy and Lt. General Des Mueller AO former Vice Chief of the Australian Defence Force.
Phase 2 – Ethics in Leadership - Personal/Professional Growth and Development
Phase 2 takes place throughout the program with Fellows completing their learning contracts in the areas of personal/professional growth, leadership, ethics and community service.
Additionally, each Vincent Fairfax Fellow identifies a person in Australia whom they would like to have as a Mentor, a sounding board for the experiences they are encountering.
Choices regarding needs, and/or alternatives in these areas are negotiated with each Fellow at the beginning of the program and revisited regularly during the program.
The Integrity Workshop is considered part of the Learning Contract. It is the last formal element of the program and takes place some months after Graduation.
Phase 3 – Ethics in Leadership - Good Decision-Making
Phase 3 takes place in the middle of the first year when participants gather in Sydney for a five-day retreat. The retreat is designed to give Fellows a number of structured opportunities to look at the world from perspectives other than the one with which they are most familiar and consequently make better decisions.
Fellows engage with and explore issues around the self and personal identity; family; the private life; community and organisations; the nation state and notions of ‘good society’ – issues good leaders grapple with as they make their decisions.
Phase 4 – Ethics in Leadership - a Regional Context
Phase 4 takes place in January/February the second year of the program. The focus of this element is regional ethics – Australia does not sit alone in the world – the way we are seen by our close neighbours, and how we see them has a critical impact on our future.
The Fellows undertake individual projects, of their own design, in a country of their choice in the South East Asian region. In addition, Fellows are given an opportunity to be delegates at a regional conference (PDF). Discussions at the conference focus on current ethical issues facing the region as a whole.
Regional projects
Examples of issues explored by Fellows:
- What happens to the local traditional fishing communities when globalisation arrives in town? (Thailand)
- How does Lao society deal with people at the edges of society – the intellectually disabled and the financially successful?
- What are the ethical implications for pharmaceutical companies undertaking clinical drug trials in developing counties? (India)
- Leadership within indigenous cultures and communities – how is leadership affected by oppression? (Malaysia)
- What will be the environmental and social effects of the construction of hydro-electric dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries by Australian companies?
- To what extent were concessions and sacrifices made by the East Timorese people worth the prize of independence from Indonesia?
- Changing the world – social movements and grass roots activism in India.
- The ethics of immigration. (Malaysia)
- What is an appropriate society response to post-conflict reconciliation? How can it be made lasting? (Philippines)
- How do the countries with these natural resources decide weather to allow logging or not? What is an acceptable standard (logging method/volume etc)? What role should the purchaser (foreign countries) play in ensuring that what they are purchasing is not causing significant social and environmental damage? (PNG)
- To what extent, if it all, can the citizens of Burma share responsibility for permitting the military to monopolise political power in Burma?
- Do organisations with different motivating service philosophies (religious/government-national and donor/major NGO/etc.) deliver aid/development in different ways? What effect, if any, does this have on the way such aid/development is received? (India)
Regional conference
The regional ethics in leadership conferences bring together emerging leaders drawn from a broad cross section of business, professional and community groups, from around the wider South East Asian Region and Australia to discuss issues of common concern.
Download a PDF document about the Regional Ethics Conference.
Phase 5 – Ethics in Leadership - Celebrated
Phase 5 comprises a symposium for all Vincent Fairfax Fellows to come together for a long weekend where ties are renewed and further issues explored. Features of the weekend include the presentation of the regional research projects and the graduation which marks the completion of the program and a celebration of the beginning of what is to come.
Dates for the next round
Applicants are required to commit themselves to full participation in all activities of the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship program:
Phase 1:
- 2 to 31 January (inclusive)
Phase 2:
- Learning contract is ongoing (approx nine hours per month)
- Integrity weekend in late October/early November in the second year of the program
Phase 3:
- Nine consecutive days early August in the first year of the program
Phase 4:
- Four weeks through December/March in the second year of the program (block of three weeks in own time, then block of one week in March for debrief and Regional Conference)
Phase 5:
- Three consecutive days early August in the second year of the program