Speaker 1: Kyoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The Australian
Speaker 2: Government is pivoting to a strictest dance on deporting so
Speaker 2: called five oh ones, people with criminal histories who had
Speaker 2: mostly grown up in Australia but were born in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: The new directive, effective from today, takes a u turn
Speaker 2: on previous commitments made by the Australian Government in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two to prioritize considering a person's links to Australia
Speaker 2: in visa decisions. Between January twenty fifteen to January this year,
Speaker 2: three thousand, one hundred and twenty eight people were deported
Speaker 2: from Australia, while not all of them five oh ones,
Speaker 2: over a third were no older than nineteen when they left,
Speaker 2: and zed just over two hundred we're no older than nine.
Speaker 3: Today.
Speaker 2: On the front Page, founder of Road to Redemption and
Speaker 2: former five oh one Mark Tallanoah discusses the implications of
Speaker 2: this new directive. First off, Mark, for those who perhaps
Speaker 2: don't know what a five oh one is, can you
Speaker 2: explain that to us?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 5: Five oh one is someone who has been deported under
Speaker 5: the Australian's Amendment to the five oh one law in
Speaker 5: Australia and who has served time in Australia and has
Speaker 5: been deported back predominantly back to New Zealand, but they
Speaker 5: could be sent back all over the world.
Speaker 4: To me, that's a five to one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's pretty controversial because it doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: long you've spent in New Zealand or Australia.
Speaker 4: Hey. No, Yes, very controversial because I do.
Speaker 5: Know a lot of men and women who case by
Speaker 5: case this situation.
Speaker 6: They're pretty much Australians, have gone there when they're infant,
Speaker 6: a little child, and they've grown up there, so all
Speaker 6: they know is Australia, the culture, the beliefs, the values,
Speaker 6: and they.
Speaker 5: Get deported back to a country that is very foreign
Speaker 5: to them.
Speaker 4: So that's what's very controversial.
Speaker 3: What have your experience has been with this system?
Speaker 4: The system it's sort of a blanket approach.
Speaker 1: I believe it when I was amended in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: that it was brought out to kind of get rid
Speaker 1: of terrorists over in Australia because it came into fruition
Speaker 1: under Tony.
Speaker 5: Abbott and they kind of had to come up of
Speaker 5: law that's going to help get rid of people who
Speaker 5: are not citizens through Australia. And obviously a lot of
Speaker 5: Keywis just go over there bridging visas and are not citizens.
Speaker 5: So we kind of fall on that kind of collateral.
Speaker 5: I guess we're the ones who've been invested the most,
Speaker 5: because there's been just over three thousand Kiwis have been
Speaker 5: deported back.
Speaker 7: To his end, just thirty one actually as of January
Speaker 7: this year.
Speaker 8: Yeah, five oh ones are New Zealand born and criminals
Speaker 8: deported from Australia. Under Scott Morrison's government. They were kicked
Speaker 8: out at a rate of more than one per day
Speaker 8: one soundbern Easy came into power. Numbers almost halved after
Speaker 8: Australia agreed to a common sense approach a mid Mountain
Speaker 8: pressure from then Prime Minister Jasinda Rdud.
Speaker 2: You're a former five oh one, hey, yes, yeah, And
Speaker 2: how was that experience for you?
Speaker 5: Well, for me, I had it a lot easier than
Speaker 5: a lot of men and women do when they do
Speaker 5: come back and they have nothing, and they have no money,
Speaker 5: and they have no jobs, and they have no support
Speaker 5: network and.
Speaker 4: They have no connection to New Zealand.
Speaker 5: I was very fortunate that my wife was my girlfriends
Speaker 5: time came over two weeks before and she kind of
Speaker 5: got housing had tamings at Aka. But even though I
Speaker 5: had that startup seven years ago, because I've been back
Speaker 5: for seven years now, it was still I still found
Speaker 5: it hard to adjust to the sort of landscape of
Speaker 5: the environment of New Zealand. Like how slow it was
Speaker 5: compared to being in Australia for fourteen years and coming
Speaker 5: back and just trying to adjust to the speed of
Speaker 5: New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Did you have any family here?
Speaker 4: No, I had no family.
Speaker 5: I'm originally from East Auckland, and I chose to not
Speaker 5: go back to Auckland because I knew what was there
Speaker 5: for me.
Speaker 4: I knew that a lot of people that I knew would.
Speaker 5: Be back in those circles and I'll just I guess
Speaker 5: it'll be just too tempting for me to fall back
Speaker 5: into old traps.
Speaker 4: So my good friend at the time sent me.
Speaker 5: A further and map of New Zealand and we decided
Speaker 5: to relocate to crush It.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you were aware that it would be
Speaker 2: quite easy to fall back into old habits. How difficult
Speaker 2: was it once you were back in New Zealand not
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 5: I guess that's the reason why we did move to
Speaker 5: Crossachs because I had no ties to no one, I knew,
Speaker 5: no one, I had no family, and wasn't as easy
Speaker 5: as to link up.
Speaker 4: With people who were still involved in that space.
Speaker 5: So for me, it wasn't that challenging because that's the
Speaker 5: reason why we moved down here. But I still found
Speaker 5: myself in those circles because if you come from a
Speaker 5: certain background, it's obviously easy to connect and link up
Speaker 5: with your old networks and people that know, mutual friends
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. So I still found myself in
Speaker 5: those sort of circles, but it was easier for me
Speaker 5: to kind of pull myself away and not get caught up.
Speaker 4: And that's hence the reason why we didn't move back
Speaker 4: to Auckland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, am I able to ask you? Is it gang affiliations?
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, just gang affiliations, but also yeah, just boys
Speaker 5: that you knew from over in Australia and we were
Speaker 5: part of that lifestyle and it's just so easy to
Speaker 5: fall into old traps and do old things. And that's
Speaker 5: why I gone to Auckland and having that as a
Speaker 5: place where everyone goes through. It kind of sets out
Speaker 5: our people up in failure because they're going to a
Speaker 5: place where all they know is what they know in Australia.
Speaker 4: Why they got the portant for We get sent here
Speaker 4: with very little.
Speaker 5: And you get a couple hundred bucks and you get
Speaker 5: better than on the back and get told to do
Speaker 5: your best.
Speaker 9: Of all, my family's here in Australia, and my daughter's here,
Speaker 9: My brothers and sisters are Australian, my dad's Australian, my
Speaker 9: mum's in Australian. I live my whole life here. I've
Speaker 9: got no one at all in New Zealand. I've never
Speaker 9: been speaking of it.
Speaker 2: You now help deportees turn their lives around. Can you
Speaker 2: tell me a little bit more about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that's a redemption to Charitable Trust where our
Speaker 5: main purpose is to help people reintegrate back into society,
Speaker 5: not just five at ones, but people.
Speaker 4: Who have come out of a.
Speaker 5: Predictional sentence and who are reintegrating. Try to help them
Speaker 5: find accommodation, help them find work, and get a little
Speaker 5: support service around them so they don't go back to
Speaker 5: old sort of habits. So that's pretty much what I've
Speaker 5: done is I've turned my life around. I've served my time,
Speaker 5: I've come back, I've done my volunteer work, I've went
Speaker 5: it up skilled and become a personal trainer and a
Speaker 5: qualified camp and I'm pretty um want to help others
Speaker 5: do the same thing and get them options and they
Speaker 5: don't have to go back to that old life. Through
Speaker 5: our trust, we've put on a one hour conference. The
Speaker 5: first one was up in Wellington in October last year
Speaker 5: where we helped put on an event. We had close
Speaker 5: to one hundred people turn up and share their stories
Speaker 5: and open up and get support services around them. And
Speaker 5: this year we are doing the same for five other ones.
Speaker 5: We're putting on a one hour conference with the date
Speaker 5: yet to be confirmed, but it'll be somewhere in October
Speaker 5: where we can put on a bigger one.
Speaker 4: Where we can get more people there to open.
Speaker 5: Up and share this sort of these stories and hopefully
Speaker 5: we can help them better their situation with housing, with health,
Speaker 5: with getting them support for work and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I bet you've spoken to so many of these men
Speaker 2: and women who have been deported over here and have
Speaker 2: arrived to nothing. Essentially, what are some of the stories
Speaker 2: that stick out to your mind that have kind of
Speaker 2: stuck with you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, some horrendous stories Last year at the Warning, it
Speaker 5: made me feel like, man, my experience was nothing compared
Speaker 5: to so many of the men and women who just
Speaker 5: come back. They're living in downtown Auckland, They're living in
Speaker 5: a hostel in the nightclub district, trying to sleep, having
Speaker 5: no work, having no food, but then a hostel with
Speaker 5: all foreigners, and yeah, just kind of experiences like that,
Speaker 5: having no money living in these hostels. Some of them
Speaker 5: end up homeless, some of them end up with no jobs,
Speaker 5: so they kind of turned to old habits and old
Speaker 5: behaviors and fall into that same sort of cycle that
Speaker 5: kind of brought them here.
Speaker 4: And that's like a common theme, you know.
Speaker 5: Just the struggles of finding work, the struggles of finding accommodation, housing,
Speaker 5: the ship, the struggles are just getting back on their feet,
Speaker 5: and that's real common for five and one getting sent
Speaker 5: back to New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Going back to twenty twenty two, were you encouraged when
Speaker 2: Australia changed its stance?
Speaker 4: I encouraged.
Speaker 5: I didn't have a little bit of hope that something
Speaker 5: was going to change.
Speaker 4: But the OSI government's going to do what they're going
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 5: They don't really care, they don't really give a shit.
Speaker 5: I believe one they can make all these promises and
Speaker 5: then they always do backlips on them, So to be honest,
Speaker 5: I don't know what to believe.
Speaker 2: Well, they've just made another backflip because of this new
Speaker 2: directive which kind of takes a step back from the
Speaker 2: promise of giving more leniency to people who have spent
Speaker 2: more time in Australia than New Zealand, regardless of them
Speaker 2: being a New Zealand citizen.
Speaker 5: Today I've signed Ministerial Direction one hundred and ten.
Speaker 9: What we do is we determine our own policy, our
Speaker 9: own policy according with our own interests.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that five oh ones are made to
Speaker 2: be a scapegoat for Australia's problems.
Speaker 4: Yes, I do believe that.
Speaker 5: And going back to what I was saying, I don't
Speaker 5: know our trued is about the terrorist stuff happening, and
Speaker 5: this just being like a decoy to that.
Speaker 4: I do believe that we're just collateral.
Speaker 5: Damage and being made as scapegoats because yeah, like we
Speaker 5: talk about the ANZACs and this brotherhood and this makeship
Speaker 5: and you know, brothers and sisters, and then Yeah, you
Speaker 5: treat your own, you know, brothers and sisters like this,
Speaker 5: anzac camaraderie like this. And they're trying to make out
Speaker 5: that a big reason why the crime rate was so
Speaker 5: high over there was because of all these criminals who
Speaker 5: had New Zealand citizenship. But yet the crime rate is
Speaker 5: still going up over there. It's kind of like, Yeah,
Speaker 5: what are they trying to achieve?
Speaker 7: Yeah, even on this side of the ditch, Hay.
Speaker 2: I know that when we talk about gang issues and violence.
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say a lot of it's pointed towards the
Speaker 2: Five Ones, but I have seen comments that five Oho
Speaker 2: Ones have brought gangs here for example.
Speaker 3: I mean that seems a bit much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that gangs have been around here since before I
Speaker 5: was born and it will continue to. But I do
Speaker 5: agree that the landscape of organized crime has changed here
Speaker 5: because of obviously the connects that five Ones do have
Speaker 5: to around the global networks and all that stuff like that.
Speaker 5: But there is data that does show that there are
Speaker 5: more Five Ones that have reformed and have turned their
Speaker 5: lives around and have not gone back to prison than
Speaker 5: they have. But what you do see out on the
Speaker 5: media and what the politicians always hop on about is
Speaker 5: the five and ones, the five ones, the bad, the stigma,
Speaker 5: the stereotype. But actually, if you look at the data,
Speaker 5: it shows that more five ones have come back and
Speaker 5: have not gone back to crime and have not reoffended.
Speaker 5: There's only a small minority of fire ones who have
Speaker 5: reoffended and gone back inside.
Speaker 2: Well, I did get some data from police on the
Speaker 2: thirty one hundred thereabouts deportees have been sent back since
Speaker 2: January twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: It's important to say that not all of them are
Speaker 3: five oh ones.
Speaker 2: By the way, a number of committed offenses after they
Speaker 2: arrived back in New Zealand. Just over nineteen hundred of
Speaker 2: them have been convicted or linked to over twenty thousand offenses.
Speaker 2: And I'll note some of those offenses may be historical
Speaker 2: in that the offense was before they were actually deported
Speaker 2: or departed New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Right, So the data on.
Speaker 2: Deportees in general doesn't look amazing, but there is no
Speaker 2: differentiation between five oh ones and deportees in general. But
Speaker 2: you must agree it kind of does make it hard
Speaker 2: for the public to dismiss this narrative that five oh ones.
Speaker 3: Are no good.
Speaker 7: How would you convince them otherwise.
Speaker 5: I think what putting on these conferences that we have
Speaker 5: on and showcasing more out in the general media that
Speaker 5: there are a lot of us who have come back
Speaker 5: in turn our lives around. There are a lot of
Speaker 5: us who have come back and who are working in
Speaker 5: a legit job, building a career, have relligit businesses, are
Speaker 5: out there in the community helping our people not go
Speaker 5: down the same path that we have gone down and
Speaker 5: turning them away from life of crime and drugs and
Speaker 5: all that stuff.
Speaker 4: So I think just getting those voices out to showcase
Speaker 4: that there are role models out there.
Speaker 5: We have made mistakes, but we have come back and
Speaker 5: we are out there doing good things for the community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and five o ones are people at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, hey, and hearing those stories would be
Speaker 2: really important. I found some University of Otago research which
Speaker 2: shows the policies are actually particularly hard on people with
Speaker 2: mental illness. Researchers found twenty two percent of the deportees
Speaker 2: they screened on arrival were referred to specialist mental health
Speaker 2: and addiction services. But they say, look, many more are
Speaker 2: falling through the cracks.
Speaker 3: Would you agree with that?
Speaker 4: Yes? One hundred percent totally agree with this.
Speaker 5: You're not just sending people back after that they have
Speaker 5: committed their sentences or done their time, or some people
Speaker 5: are sent back without even serving prison terms now, but yeah,
Speaker 5: we don't even take into account that they are just humans.
Speaker 5: That a lot of us do come back with mental
Speaker 5: health issues that are not treated and undiagnosed, and then
Speaker 5: you send the person like that without the right support
Speaker 5: back into the community.
Speaker 4: It's a sad reality. But I totally agree with that.
Speaker 4: With the mental health issues for sure.
Speaker 5: That's just not right that we think that people have
Speaker 5: no connection to New Zealander, to court, to New Zealands.
Speaker 4: We regret the decision that Australia has made.
Speaker 5: Promenisy has also assured me they'll continue to be a
Speaker 5: common sense approach.
Speaker 2: A spokesperson for our Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peter has
Speaker 2: actually told us he shares Prime Minister of Christopher Luxen's
Speaker 2: concerns over this recent change, but notes that the ossipm
Speaker 2: there Anthony Albernezi. He assures common sense approach will prevail.
Speaker 2: Are you confident a common sense approach will actually prevail?
Speaker 5: I don't believe so, because he's promised over there says
Speaker 5: one thing and then they do a U turn on that.
Speaker 4: Then they'll say another thing and they'll backflip on that.
Speaker 4: You can't just have a blanket approach.
Speaker 5: For every single person who's getting sent back, because, like
Speaker 5: I said at the start, some people are born in Australia,
Speaker 5: like you're pretty much raised born and raised raised the
Speaker 5: culture of the beliefs, the values that you have are
Speaker 5: Australian And how are you sending them back when everything
Speaker 5: they know, everything they do, all that they are are
Speaker 5: Australians And that common sense approach needs to be done.
Speaker 4: But I don't know if they'll follow through their words.
Speaker 7: It's a bit of a political football. Hey.
Speaker 2: And on the note of that political involvement, do you
Speaker 2: think the New Zealand government should do more to support
Speaker 2: five oh one's actually integrating back into society here?
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, I do believe that we need a lot
Speaker 5: more help with assistance, with accommodation, with mental health, with
Speaker 5: getting back on our feed and finding jobs. They are
Speaker 5: services out there, like their par and pars that are
Speaker 5: doing great things to help support them in a woman,
Speaker 5: but there's too much demand on supplier there for well
Speaker 5: services to help our people.
Speaker 4: We just need a lot more help.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us mark.
Speaker 2: Australia's Immigration Minister Andrew Giles decline.
Speaker 3: To comment on this episode.
Speaker 2: Instead, we were directed to earlier comments he made, saying
Speaker 2: decisions on deporting people who have spent the majority of
Speaker 2: their lives in Australia should be made based on common
Speaker 2: sense and the protection of the Australian community. A spokesperson
Speaker 2: for Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told The Front Page
Speaker 2: he shares Prime Minister Christopher Luxen's concerns over the change,
Speaker 2: but also reference to Ozzie PM Anthony Albernizi's assurances of
Speaker 2: a common sense approach. Peters said that New Zealand accepts
Speaker 2: that Australia has the right to determine what level of
Speaker 2: offending by non citizens is unacceptable, but they don't want
Speaker 2: to see people with little to no connection to New
Speaker 2: Zealand deported here. New Zealand will keep discussing this matter
Speaker 2: with Australia. That's it for this episode of The Front Page.
Speaker 2: You can read more about today's stories and extensive news
Speaker 2: coverage at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page
Speaker 2: is produced by Ethan Sills and Sound engineer Patti Fox.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on.
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Speaker 2: the headlines.