Australia’s Greatest Conman? review: Marc Fennell’s latest doco will leave you puzzling

Pretty much every headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with one word: no. But when it comes to John Friedrich, the subject of Mark Fennell’s latest SBS documentary series Australia’s Greatest Conman?, things get a little more complicated.

There’s no doubt Friedrich was responsible for one of the biggest cases of fraud Australia’s ever seen. It’s just that we usually expect conmen to be making themselves rich – and Friedrich seemed to have a very different plan in mind.

Australia’s greatest conman: not just a figure of fun

Seeing host Marc Fennell walking around West Sale airbase is a bit of a personal thrill; I have family in Sale, and when I was growing up West Sale was a hive of activity on the edge of town. One of my older cousins worked there, and when things fell apart it shook the town to the core. In the capital cities Friedrich largely became a figure of gossip and fun, but in Sale his demise had a serious effect, and it’s nice to see a spotlight being shone on a slice of Australian history that mostly took place in the space between the cities and the outback.

During much of the 1980s, John Friedrich ran the Victorian branch of the National Safety Council of Australia. Originally a volunteer organisation, in the wake of the Ash Wednesday fires Friedrich pushed to expand their scope. For 60 years, they’d mostly been about safety posters and training advice; once Friedrich took charge, they rapidly became the premiere search and rescue operation in the country.

Described by one colleague as having ‘nine out of ten charisma’, he pulled both the organisation and its members along with his vision. By the late 80s they had over 400 staff, with bases across Victoria and the nation, a fleet of rescue boats alongside helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, rescue dogs, a parachute team and even a mini submarine. What they didn’t have was a way to pay for it all.

Marc Fennell rises to the challenge

In recent years Fennell has established himself as the chronicler of Australia’s lesser-known history. While Stuff the British Stole has been his biggest hit, and he got personal with his look at Pentecostal churches with The Kingdom, his looks at art heists in Framed and The Mission have been his most entertaining documentaries to date. Both were an engaging mix of history and true crime – which makes Australia’s Greatest Conman? something of a logical next step.

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Aside from the crime investigation, there’s a lot of archival footage of the NSCA in operation. (Well, mostly training operations. Victoria didn’t actually have much use for a rescue submarine, or for people parachuting out of planes with dogs strapped to them.) Bright yellow helicopters, people in bright yellow jumpsuits, a warehouse full of men in military uniforms. ‘Every day was an adventure,’ as Fennell says.

The story itself is a gripping one, but as massive criminal frauds go it’s a bit of a puzzle. Even those investigating it at the time still seem a bit confused about exactly what it was they uncovered. On one level, it was obvious: Friedrich had used a combination of fraudulent records and non-existent assets to defraud a number of banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

On the other, he’d mostly used the money to build up a legitimate organisation. The money didn’t go offshore into secret bank accounts, it was used to buy planes and equipment and train staff. So then people started asking a different set of questions. NSCA had access to military bases all across the country: was Friedrich a CIA agent, putting together a paramilitary organisation? Who exactly was Friedrich anyway?

A story of charisma, confidence and confusion

Most of what happened is on the public record, though enough time has passed to allow Fennell to structure Australia’s Greatest Conman? as a mystery. And some questions about what went on – especially those directly connected to Friedrich himself – remain unanswered to this day. It’s no surprise that the journalists Fennell interviews who investigated the story, notably Hugh Riminton and Kerry O’Brien, still seem frustrated.

As for those who worked for the NSCA in Victoria, many of them still seem loyal to their former boss. It’s not hard to see why. He really did create a top-class search and rescue operation, with first rate training and equipment. Being basically a private, quasi-government organisation gave him the leeway to do pretty much what he wanted, and what he wanted was to create, as many at the time called it, ‘The Thunderbirds’.

While there’s plenty of fraud and conspiracies swirling around this two part series, the picture that emerges of Friedrich is possibly the most memorable part. He used other people’s money to create a high-powered fantasy around himself, and when that fantasy crumbled you can see him crumbling along with it. Well before the end of the story it’s clear he’s lost everything; just how much he had to lose is staggering.

Australia’s Greatest Conman? premieres 24 February on SBS and SBS On Demand.

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