From cages to redemption: Inside the lives of 501 deportees | NZ Herald

Journalist and former Newshub and 3 News producer Angus Gillies has written a new book '501s: The Reluctant Returnees'. He spoke to Newstalk ZB's John Cowan about the experiences of those caught up in the policy.

In December 2014, the Australian Government passed legislation allowing criminals who had served more than 12 months to be deported back to their “home countries”.

The decision would capture New Zealand’s attention for years to come.

Thousands were sent back to New Zealand as a result of the policy, even if they had lived most of their lives across the ditch.

Now, journalist and former Newshub and 3 News producer Angus Gillies has written about their experiences in his book, 501s: The Reluctant Returnees.

Gillies spoke to Real Life with John Cowan on Newstalk ZB on Sunday night about the experiences of those caught up in the policy.

He described the actions by the Tony Abbott Government as “disastrous” from New Zealand’s perspective, and bordering on “dystopian”.

“These guys had gone over there with their families, often as kids, and they had a go at making a life over there, and a lot of the family had. But, in every family, not everyone’s going to be a complete success,” he told John Cowan.

“With a lot of these people, if they had 12 months in jail, they were automatically sent back home, and there was no one here. The family had gone.”

Gillies remembered when he first heard the news after receiving a call from a former colleague at 3 News, who had gone to work in Australia, and who couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Of the accounts recorded in his book, it was the stories about the detention centres that stood out to Gillies.

One of those was “CJ” Callan Hughes, who was imprisoned on Christmas Island, which was notorious at the time for the poor treatment of those kept there.

“They had a mini riot because of the conditions, and he ended up in a cage for two months,” Gillies explained.

“He was stuck in there with two other guys, who he described as ‘lunatics’. CJ said those two months he spent in that cage are the most traumatising of his whole life being incarcerated anywhere.”

When asked whether criminals deserve sympathy, Gillies challenged that perception by raising other examples.

“Peter Dutton, who was the Immigration Minister at the time, had the power to deport people based on character. So a couple of guys I spoke to - Lee Tepuia in particular - were just sent back because of bad character. He was in the Rebels Motorcycle Club, but he hadn’t committed any crime.

“One day police and other agencies swooped on him as he was on his way to work, and took him into a maximum security prison in Perth.”

Gillies believed it was a completely wrong approach, and it made the situation worse for many involved.

“There were guys in those detention centres who were worth a second chance”, Gillies told John Cowan.

“They were stuck in a detention centre with really hardened criminals, and often they would come under their influence and end up committing far worse crimes than they would have imagined 18 months earlier.”

He also felt it “changed New Zealand’s criminal landscape” by importing Australian gang members into the country.

Despite some of the more harrowing parts of the book, there is a silver thread of hope woven through many of the stories.

While many of the people Gillies had spoken with had struggled significantly, some managed to turn their lives around despite their trauma.

He recalled the story of a man called David Obeda, who arrived in New Zealand addicted to buprenorphine, which can act as a heroin replacement.

“He was wanting to sort his life out, and then he got a job working with moving trucks and eventually managed to wean himself off. The trick for him was, he found faith. Not necessarily an organised religion, but he kind of believes in a higher power and that worked for him.”

Obeda had told Gillies that it was common for others like him, and that they found strength in a higher being.

“It’s a bigger problem than you can handle on your own, and they gather a little bit of strength that way,” Gillies said. “He was saying it could be Christianity or Jesus, it could be Buddha, it could be Islam.”

Another example was Amanda Walker, who did prison time for trafficking drugs in Queensland.

“She came back here and studied social work, and she really wants to help women who are in the same position that she was.”

Those two were among many who Gillies said, “took the ball and ran with it”.

Gillies believes everyone has the capacity to change and choose a better path, a conviction shaped in part by his own decision to turn away from heavy drinking.

“I ended up in a few AA meetings … and it was incredible seeing people who had been in the gutter one week and get two or three weeks sober, and they seemed pretty normal.”

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