“It’s really wild”: Marc Fennell on the mystery of the fraudster John Friedrich

When Walkley Award-winning journalist and presenter Marc Fennell looks around a hard-hitting crime story, he tends to focus on the bigger picture.

The Mission He was hanged in a robbery station where 26 jobs were stolen from a former orphanage. But the show was less about crime, and more about the unimaginably dark history of that place born of misery.

His latest writings, in two parts Australia’s Biggest Conmanshares some of the bones of that story.

At its heart is another crime, this time a huge mystery involving a staggering amount of embezzled money. Just like The Missionthis amazing story has faded from our collective memory.

But Fennell wanted a more personal approach this time. “To me, Australia’s Biggest Conman it was always about someone.”

That person was called John Friedrich, a mysterious man who appeared out of nowhere in the ’80s, with no interest in talking about it, and became involved in the ground floor of the Victorian Division of the National Safety Council of Australia (NSCA).

Within a few years, he worked his way to the top of that organization, turning it into a game-changing search and rescue outfit.

His pioneering leadership of the NSCA has had an incredible and lasting impact on the industry worldwide. But everything is built on lies. In fact, many lies and incredibly complex creative calculations. That, and some of the organization’s testing methods were far from simple – parachute dogs and pigeon pilots, anyone?

“It’s really wild,” Fennell said. “Did you know that Australia actually had its own version Birds of heaven? We as a group looked at each other and said, ‘Excuse me, what?’ I always think that reaction is a good start.”

The truly astonishing details of how this incredible organization was built and undone struck the journalistic senses of George Negus, Kerry O’Brien and Hugh Riminton. But nothing was as strange as Friedrich himself.

“As you move into the first half of the frenzy, it becomes a story of one man’s mind,” Fennell said. “We spent a lot of time trying to understand John, but he still disagrees with him.” He is a strong contender for Australia’s biggest villain.

Not so with Friedrich. “His personal gain is very questionable here, and he’s really helped a lot of people,” Fennell said. “That’s what makes this such an interesting puzzle. It doesn’t excuse what he did wrong, or how he did it, but it makes it very unethical.”

Creating a mystery

A lot of money was spent on NSCA, a number of banks and other creditors were extending loan after loan.

“John deceived the most powerful people in the country,” Fennell said. “Bob Hawke gave him the Order of Australia.

Some people were fishing long before reporters cast their nets. They include Friedrich’s WA-based corporate nemesis, Bill Meeke, an aviator who was then CEO of Skywest Airlines.

Fennell says: “I’m passionate about the East-West rivalry. Bill was a smart cookie. He was quick to call it, and people were like, ‘You’re jealous.’ And he doesn’t deny that. He was an ardent competitor.

“But history confirmed him, he and his team knew that this thing is not related to anything, because aviation is a difficult business.”

Surprisingly, Booker Prize-winning author Richard Flannagan also chimed in. As a young and hungry writer, he was commissioned by then-publisher Louise Adler to ghostwrite a biography of Friedrich. But Flannagan was surprised by the lack of facts, including where the bloody hell his title came from.

“Louise has had and will continue to have an amazing career, and one of the things I love about her is that she’s so outspoken,” Fennell said.

“You know this was a bad chapter in his life. He was young and dealing with a strange young man, poor young Richard who was also trying to get around.”

The whole story

From publishers to colleagues and business rivals, everyone has a memorable story about Friedrich, Fennell notes.

He says: “The National Security Council has done great things, but John was really scaring people. “In my opinion, he was not the right person to communicate with at all.

Australia’s Biggest Conman it reminds viewers of the details of this story that once made headlines, but faded from memory.

“A lot of people are incredibly traumatized by what happened, and they’re going through it,” Fennell said. “Being traumatized by something that the nation has forgotten is difficult.”

Fennell and his team do an excellent job peeling back the layers of mystery surrounding Friedrich, where he came from and how he managed to nearly escape. But some secrets remain stubbornly out of reach, as do persistent rumors that Friedrich was a spy.

“When you’re doing a story about someone like this, you have to accept that there will always be gray areas that you won’t fully understand,” said Fennell.

“The series drives the story forward, otherwise it wouldn’t be right. But at the same time, you have to accept that there’s always a certain level of mystery. You’ll never fully understand what was going on inside his head.”

For Fennell, it’s part and parcel of SBS’s mission to help tell Australia’s story in all its glory and poignant detail.

“Sometimes you tell the story of someone who comes to Australia and becomes the biggest con. And I don’t think that takes anything away from the wonderful contribution of multicultural Australia. It’s part of the story, and that’s fine.”

‘Australia’s Biggest Man?’ premieres on Tuesday 24 February at 8.30pm on SBS and the second and final episode airs on Wednesday 25 February at 8.30pm. The two-part series is also streaming now on SBS On Demand.

Australia’s Biggest Conman?

See more great news at MARC FENNELL COLLECTION on SBS On Demand, including Secret DNA of Us, The Mission, and Tell Me What You Really Think.

Tell Me What You Really Think