With little support available and many issues to deal with, a growing number of 501 returnees are supporting each other to overcome deportation and advocate for change. Liam Rātana hears from some of them.
Here I am, holding hands and praising God in a circle full of social workers, ex-gang leaders, and deported criminals. Prayers ring out giving thanks and praise to the almighty. Suddenly, a woman collapses into her chair, yet the prayers continue. After realising that she’s probably not having a moment of divine intervention, I weigh up whether I should offer first aid (in the end, the woman was fine). It’s not exactly how I pictured my Friday unfolding, but then again, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I reserved a ticket for the 2024 501 conference.
Earlier in the day, we gathered outside the function centre at the Pakuranga United Rugby Club in east Auckland for a wero and pōwhiri. The first thing I notice when I arrive is the two large men standing in front of me sporting fresh cuts, flashy jewellery, shorts, and Nike TNs. They are also both rocking a Rolex around their ankles, AKA an electronic monitoring bracelet, indicating the police are keeping an eye on them. Looking around, I can’t help but chuckle as I notice the amount of men wearing Nike TNs – they really do seem to be the shoe of choice for the “adlays” from Australia.
On the way in, I’m greeted with a handshake from Phil Paikea, a founding member of the Black Power chapter in Northland, who now works for SafeMan SafeFamily, a group advocating against domestic violence. Inside, pleasantries are exchanged and there are some moving waiata performed by tamariki from Rangeview Intermediate. I find a seat at a table at the back, where I can hear the quiet hum of the beer fridges in the closed rugby club bar behind me.
Many of us have become familiar with the term “501” over the last decade, with the first group of returnees arriving on our shores in 2015. The term refers to people who have had their visas cancelled and been deported from Australia under s501 of Australia’s Migration Act 1958, which was amended in 2011 to include failing a “character test” as grounds for deportation. The character test was toughened in 2014 and enforcement stepped up. According to the Australian Department of Home Affairs, around 3,800 people were returned from Australia to New Zealand between 2014 and 2024, many of whom had spent most of their lives in Australia. That’s over 50% of the approximate 7,310 people who have been deported under the act, and around five times the number of deportees to the United Kingdom, the next highest nationality on the list. Māori and Pasifika have been disproportionately affected by the policy.
The 501 policy has been controversial since its inception, with the returnees often making their presence felt here in Aotearoa in unwelcome ways. There have been several incidences of 501 deportees reoffending, including homicides and serious drug offences. The purported rise in violent crime around the country, an increase in gang membership and the rapid proliferation of the drug trade in Aotearoa has been directly linked to the rise in the number of 501 returnees, many of whom were senior gang figures from Australia, bringing with them their international connections and ruthless business approach. Relationships between New Zealand gangs and international crime syndicates like the Mexican cartels have drawn the attention of international agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency, who set up shop in New Zealand in 2021.
Despite the negative narrative, not all of those who have returned to New Zealand are continuing to live the lifestyle they did in Australia, nor are they all senior gang members or career criminals. “They say we’re taking over the criminal world and things like that, but we’re also taking over in positive ways,” says David Obeda, one of the conference’s organisers.
A 501 himself, Obeda has managed to turn his life around since returning to New Zealand in 2019. Today, he manages the highly successful TFS podcast, which has amassed over 72,000 subscribers on YouTube and tens of thousands of followers on other social media platforms. The podcast – its name stands for The Fresh Start – is a real and raw insight into the stories of many of the country’s notorious suburbs and towns, as well as interviews with high-profile gang leaders and other underworld figures, all from the perspective of someone who is all too familiar with the lifestyle.
The first person to share their journey is former gang president Joey Tangaloa Tauali’i, who has spent the last seven years of his life at Victoria’s Broadmeadows Justice Service Centre, also known as a detention centre, fighting against his s501 deportation to Tonga, where he spent the first three months of his life. Speaking in a pre-recorded video, Tauali’i says he has lived in Australia for 50 years, yet the country still wants to deport him.
Being forced to stay in Australian detention centres notorious for poor conditions while awaiting appeals against deportation is just one of the issues 501 advocates are speaking out against. A lack of support, social isolation and difficulties integrating into New Zealand society are all difficulties that returnees face upon arrival. These issues coexist alongside what some of the speakers label “the silent sentence” of stigma, judgment and bias. The issues have led to a high rate of death among returnees or those facing deportation.
“We’re basically like refugees. We’re being displaced and uprooted – taken away from our families and our lives,” Obeda says.
“We’ve lost a lot of people along the way. A lot of people have come back here and couldn’t cope – it hasn’t just necessarily been suicide either, sometimes it has been suicidal behaviour.”
Mark Talanoa is the other organiser of the event. After returning in 2017, Talanoa says he knew he needed to change his ways. The former star NRL prospect turned drug dealer is now a construction tutor and personal trainer, living with his family on a lifestyle block just out of Christchurch. Talanoa credits much of his success to his wife Desiree, who moved their family across the ditch and set up base in Aotearoa ahead of Talanoa’s release from prison.
“I was fried off my head, I was sizzled,” Talanoa shares with the crowd. He talks about being in a drug-induced psychosis while inside the “spinner’s room”, AKA solitary confinement in prison, worshipping the devil and drawing upside-down crosses and “666” on the walls of his cell. Now, Talanoa can laugh about it, saying: “I’m still drawing on Corrections walls but I’m doing it legally,” referring to his role as a principal research adviser with the Department of Corrections.
Desiree shares that she is currently writing a thesis on the experience of 501 returnees, which is met with applause from the crowd. She is just one of a group of academics focusing on the effects of the 501 legislation and advocating for change. The issue has even made it as far as Geneva, with Obeda addressing the UN Optional Protocol Against Torture committee alongside longtime advocate Filipa Payne and fellow 501 returnee Moses Folau.
The speeches pause for lunch and we begin sharing kai. I start talking to the only other person sitting at my table and soon learn that Chris returned to Aotearoa in 2019 and is now living in Tauranga. He proceeds to tell me that he had worked in the mines for years and convinced his family from Aotearoa to join him in Western Australia. “Now they’re all there and I’m here in New Zealand,” says Chris.
On one fateful weekend, Chris says he was “having a bit of fun with the boys” and things got out of hand. They ended up getting into some trouble in town and Chris was arrested, convicted and sent back to New Zealand. “I never thought I’d get deported,” Chris says. “I was a working man – I went to work every day and had a clean criminal record.” Now with a young baby at home in Tauranga and looking to start his own business, Chris is slowly trying to rebuild his life, one step at a time.
With growing awareness of the issues 501 returnees face and an increase in support available, the hope seems to be that more will choose to use the opportunity as a chance to reset and change their lives, instead of continuing on a path of crime and incarceration. While not everyone will choose a positive direction, there are more tools becoming available for those looking to make change.
This is Public Interest Journalism funded by NZ On Air.