In Griffith, the books always balanced—even when nothing else did. Episode 4 follows the quiet figures who kept the region’s financial world running: a discreet accountant known only as Mr. G, and a young parish priest whose ledgers recorded donations no collection plate could explain. Their handwriting threaded through farms, co-ops, churches and political offices, mapping a silent economy that shifted cash from the Riverina to Sydney and, eventually, Canberra.

Drawing from sworn evidence, financial records and contemporary reporting, this episode uncovers how ordinary accounting practices became the perfect language for extraordinary secrecy. Brown envelopes, blue-linen ledgers, vanished parish pages, and political “adjustments” formed a system where money entered clean channels and disappeared within weeks. No crimes proven—just patterns too precise to ignore.

As investigators probed unexplained wealth, requests were dismissed as “out of scope,” and evidence quietly slipped through institutional cracks. What remained were traces: an initial in a commission appendix, missing microfilm, a priest’s private crisis of faith, and a ledger that briefly surfaced in Sydney before vanishing into the country’s political bloodstream.

This is the story of the men who balanced the books—and what their numbers reveal about the cost of silence.

Credits

Written & Produced by Stephen Johns

Sound Design & Editing by Stephen Johns

Archival Research by Alex G

Archival audio excerpts courtesy of ABC News.

Used under Australian fair dealing provisions for news, reporting, and public interest analysis.

© Compromised Podcast Series. All rights reserved.

Music licensed via Uppbeat:

• Like a River — Danijel Zambo
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• Blur — Goods Cargo
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• Endless Puzzle — AVBE
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• Spring Coming — Enrique Molano
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• A New Chapter — Luminbird
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• Intriguing Case — Matt Stewart-Evans
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• Electromagnetic Interference — Adi Goldstein
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• News You Can Trust — Soundroll
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• The Heart of Silence — Arnito
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• Two Worlds — Tatami
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Justice Philip Woodward audio in part: Crime Investigation Australia: Conviction in Donald Mackay case. 2007. Foxtel

Al Grassby comments: ABC News archives Australia

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