Why I don’t rate Nedd Brockmann

A very unpopular take on an Australian hero

In 2022 Nedd Brockmann became a household name when he managed to run almost 4,000 kilometres from Cottesloe to Bondi in just 46 days. 

While this was a staggering achievement, it might have gone unnoticed had Nedd not been joined by a support vehicle who captured every moment of his journey. They shared his triumphs and his tears on social media. It was raw and thoroughly compelling. 

What made Nedd a particularly interesting character was his curated appearance of ordinariness. He was presented as a typical Aussie bloke: a young electrician who sported an impressive mullet and had only recently discovered running. Watching him – someone you might bump into at the pub – suffer and persevere made people consider their own potential. 

Did I, also an ordinary person, have hidden wells of excellence? Almost certainly not. But it was nice to dream. 

When Nedd arrived in Bondi, gaunt, in pain, and suffering from multiple injuries, he was greeted like a celebrity. Hundreds of people cheered as he ran to a finish line of his own making.  He was after the world record of 43 days, but narrowly missed out on that number. He’s was still the fastest Australian to ever traverse this route on foot. 

I will reiterate that this is a staggering achievement. My knees hurt when I sit behind a desk too long and I’m out of breath every single time I walk up the hill to my house even though I do it twice a day. Nedd may as well be a different species.

‘Well this has been quite a glowing newsletter,’ you might think. ‘I was promised an unpopular take’. 

And an unpopular take you shall have. Now might be a good time to take stock of your garden shed and considering rallying your fellow villagers. 

What I don’t like about Nedd? The fact he attached a charity onto the whole endeavour.

Yes, you read that right. It’s the philanthropic stuff I don’t go for. 

When a reporter asked George Mallory why he wanted to climb Everest he replied, "because it's there." It was a glib, offhand remark which beautifully summed up the human spirit in all its endeavour and absurdity. 

What Mallory didn’t say was “I’m climbing it because I want to raise $1 million for the homeless”. 

God, could you imagine? 

Perhaps if Mallory was attempting his climb today he would mask his mad ambition with some charitable goal. He would be applauded for his bland selflessness and perhaps one of the most interesting lines - practically a metaphysical comment on what it is to be human - would never had been uttered. We’d all be so much poorer for it. 

Here’s what I think. Mallory wanted to climb that mountain because it was there, and Nedd Brockmann wanted to run lengthways across Australia because he thought he could. And both of them reckoned it would be pretty cool if they pulled it off. Mallory, of course, didn’t. His death was tragic, if not a predictable. Nedd, on the other hand, made it across Australia, albeit a little later than he’d planned.

The running I can understand. How homelessness fits into this story is a bit more puzzling to me.

Yes, I know how terribly cynical this sounds. But if solving this particular social issue was Nedd’s primary motive, his choice of charities could have been more discerning. 

The charity Nedd decided to back is called Mobilise, started by a few well-meaning people in their mid-20s. As the story goes, the charity’s founder shared one of Nedd’s social media posts after he completed a marathon. The two had a conversation and later Ned offered to raise money for the group.

According to the Mobilise annual reports, before Nedd came along they had $11,000 of revenue in the 2021 - 2022 financial year. This was fine because, as their website says, “the goal of our flagship Outreaches is not to provide food or money, but conversations held in the spirit of curiosity and empathy”. 

I mean, I’m no charity expert. But if you want to get people off the streets, maybe the best group to give a stupid amount of cash to aren’t the guys who deal primarily in chats and empathy. This work is important, yes. But they were never set up to distribute large sums of money. It wasn’t their model. 

So what are they doing with the money? Well, as of their last annual report, nothing. 

Of the almost $2.5 million that was raised in 2022, they spent just $250k by June last year. That money went to staff salaries, marketing and professional development. To be fair, they were probably not immediately equipped to use this extraordinary windfall. I hope they’ve made quick progress.

According to the Mobilise website they’ve “changed” more than 60 lives through their programs. ‘Changed’ is a fuzzy metric and 60 people in more than two years of operating doesn’t feel like a lot. Even then, I’m sure they’re doing more good than bad. 

Which is all they need to do, right? 

The reasonable rebuttal to what I’ve written is that something is better than nothing. That someone raising money for homelessness, is a good thing no matter what their motivations are. That’s is what makes this topic so slippery. It’s hard to scrutinise any charity or their supporters without looking like a total and utter arsehole. Frankly, if this newsletter’s audience wasn’t so small, I doubt I would be so bold.  

I don’t think that Nedd Brockmann or the charity he’s working with is up to anything untoward, but I do think he is part of a larger modern story. Nedd is just one person who has obscured ambition behind a veneer of philanthropy. I understand the instinct – it turns a fundamentally selfish act into something beyond reproach. So beyond reproach that no one has been really looking at where those millions of dollars have gone or asked whether Mobilise was the right enterprise for so much money. Nedd isn’t done, either. He launched a chocolate milk company and vows not to stop until he’s raised $10 million dollars. 

Of course, I don’t have a problem with charities or their events. Please, do a fun run, raise money, help the world be a better place. Just don’t use these things as a crutch to hide your motivations. Finding an answer the question ‘can I do it?’ is perhaps the truest exploration there is. It should be applauded. 

So climb that mountain, swim that channel, write that book, run that marathon. If you are looking for a reason, you do not need one. 

Just do it because it is there. That is enough.  

See you next Monday!