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